Apple sells 100 million iPods and counting

Apple Inc. has sold 100 million iPod media players in the 5 1/2 years since Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs unveiled the device.
The sales make the iPod the fastest-selling music player in history, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said Monday in a statement.
Jobs has introduced more than 10 models since October 2001, including the Mini, Nano, a video iPod and the Shuffle.
The tally means Apple likely sold about 11 million iPods in the second quarter, up from 8.53 million a year earlier.
Analysts on average anticipated 11.1 million units, UBS AG analyst Benjamin Reitzes said, adding his own estimate had been for 12.2 million. Apple had sold more than 88.7 million through December, with a record 21 million players during the holidays.
Apple in January began offering its $79 Shuffle in five colors to help boost post-holiday sales and probably will introduce new designs this year to spur demand, New York-based Reitzes said.
He raised his second-quarter profit estimate to 63 cents from 61 cents a share after predicting that lower memory prices and demand for Macintosh personal computers will buoy profit margins.
Reitzes rates the Apple shares "buy" and doesn't own them.
The company reports second-quarter results April 25.
Shares of Apple fell $1.03, or 1.1 percent, to $93.65 in Nasdaq stock market trading. They are up 10 percent this year.
Apple in January forecast sales in the second quarter ended March 31 of $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion and profit of 54 cents to 56 cents a share. That's up from $4.36 billion and 47 cents a year ago.
Sales of the iPod accounted for 48 percent of Apple's revenue in the holiday quarter. It is the best-selling music player in the U.S., with a more than 70 percent share of the market, according to NPD Group Inc. in Port Washington, N.Y.
"Without the iPod, the digital-music age would have been defined by files and folders instead of songs and albums," a statement from musician John Mayer said। Singer Mary J. Blige and cyclist Lance Armstrong also offered their endorsements.


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