While everyone else is freaking out over the cooling of iPod sales this past holiday season, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster remains confident in Apple's ultimate ability to maintain its 70 percent market share and reignite those sales in the future.
In a research note obtained by MacNN, Munster said the company's iPod business will likely rebound in the coming year and that the key driver will be none other than the Wi-Fi enabled touch and possibly other connected touch devices.
"With the iPod user base as its foundation, Apple is establishing a Wi-Fi mobile platform that we believe will spark continued growth in the iPod segment," Munster said.
During Apple's Q1 earnings report, CFO Peter Oppenheimer confessed that iPod sales had been less than spectacular. The company registered only 5 percent growth in overall unit sales, the slowest year-over-year rate in the product's history. This had pundits, analysts and shareholders nervous given that the device has historically been seen as a prime indicator of Apple's overall health. But as others were quick to point out, while iPod sales slowed down, iPod revenue for the quarter actually did quite well, growing 17 percent over the year-ago quarter.
Most agreed this meant that more and more people were opting for the more expensive iPod models like the touch instead of the nano and shuffle.
During the earnings call, executives even recast the iPod touch as potentially "the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform, running all kinds of mobile applications," marking the first time Apple has labeled the touch as anything more than a high end iPod.
Based on his research note, Munster seems buy this new characterization and vision for the future. He concludes that despite a slowdown in growth in the MP3 market, if iPod lineup does become a mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform, it will have two results:
Photo: Flickr/kawabata
