iPod Mini Supply Increasing

[MacRumors]

According to various reader reports, the online Apple Store is showing a 1-3 day availability on iPod Minis for the first time since their introduction. Previous wait times have been as high as 4 weeks or more, due mainly to the fact that demand was far outstripping supply. Previous production ramp-ups were met with the release of the Mini on the international market, which again completely outstripped supply quickly.

It is not yet know whether the ship times are due to Hitachi's own rumored increase in supply of the drives, or if worldwide demand is finally slowing enough for supply to catch up. Additionally, iPod minis are now available for sale in Target stores as well as various other resellers. Previously, the mini was displayed in stores only with a 'coming soon' note below.

[wrldwzrd89]

Originally Posted by Macrumors

According to various reader reports, the online Apple Store is showing a 1-3 day availability on iPod Minis for the first time since their introduction. Previous wait times have been as high as 4 weeks or more, due mainly to the fact that demand was far outstripping supply. Previous production ramp-ups were met with the release of the Mini on the international market, which again completely outstripped supply quickly.

It is not yet know whether the ship times are due to Hitachi's own rumored increase in supply of the drives, or if worldwide demand is finally slowing enough for supply to catch up. Additionally, iPod minis are now available for sale in Target stores as well as various other resellers. Previously, the mini was displayed in stores only with a 'coming soon' note below.

This is good news for everyone, since the iPod minis have been in such high demand, and will likely continue to be in high demand. I'm wondering what has changed in the supply chain to increase the supply so much.

[hipvictor]

I found this link while surfing macsurfer...

http://www.randommaccess.com/news/1095796972.shtml

>>>A Target employee told customers today that iPod minis with a 20GB capacity would be available in store by the end of October. "They're working on them now and we're just waiting for them to come in," he told shoppers, adding that iPods would be bumped up to 60-gig capacities. No information on pricing was available. As of this posting, neither Target nor Apple have responded to our requests for clarification.<<<<

dumb employee?

[macridah]

Yup, went to an apple store an they said that they have all ipod mini colors in stock. Then, some heads turned, and once you know it, there was a long line of people buying ipod mini's.

[wrldwzrd89]

Originally Posted by hipvictor

I found this link while surfing macsurfer...

http://www.randommaccess.com/news/1095796972.shtml

>>>A Target employee told customers today that iPod minis with a 20GB capacity would be available in store by the end of October. "They're working on them now and we're just waiting for them to come in," he told shoppers, adding that iPods would be bumped up to 60-gig capacities. No information on pricing was available. As of this posting, neither Target nor Apple have responded to our requests for clarification.<<<<

dumb employee?

I say hogwash. The iPod mini will be upgraded, but jumping from 4 GB to 20 GB when the smallest iPod is 20 GB makes no sense at all. Also, there's an article on MacRumors that suggests the 60 GB hard drives needed for a 60 GB iPod aren't ready for production yet.

[pcharles]

Originally Posted by wrldwzrd89

I say hogwash. The iPod mini will be upgraded, but jumping from 4 GB to 20 GB when the smallest iPod is 20 GB makes no sense at all. Also, there's an article on MacRumors that suggests the 60 GB hard drives needed for a 60 GB iPod aren't ready for production yet.

I agree. There is talk of 8GB microdrives, but I have heard nothing about larger ones. I'm sure the person means the small ipod will increase from 15 to 20GB, giving Apples iPod line as 20, 40, 60GB by Christmas. What would be cool is to go 20, 40, 80GB and give me a little room to expand because I use my iPod for documents as well as music and my (and my wifes combined) music collection is already over 50GB ay AAC128.

I suppose now that LacCie have the half-terabyte FW-800 drives , I should spend next summer reencoding everything to Apple Lossless and then sample some to MP3 for the car.

[bennok]

Too may Apple will never sell any of them. Especially not at $249.

[Mudbug]

Originally Posted by hipvictor

I found this link while surfing macsurfer...

http://www.randommaccess.com/news/1095796972.shtml

>>>A Target employee told customers today that iPod minis with a 20GB capacity would be available in store by the end of October. "They're working on them now and we're just waiting for them to come in," he told shoppers, adding that iPods would be bumped up to 60-gig capacities. No information on pricing was available. As of this posting, neither Target nor Apple have responded to our requests for clarification.<<<<

dumb employee?

retail stores are usually the last to know about a product update - you'll most likely hear about the release of an upcoming 60 gb iPod here before a Target employee knows.

[hipvictor]

I bought my silver mini at Fry's in Dallas on June 1st. During this serious shortage time, they had five silvers just chillin there on the shelf...no crowd around or anything! I was expecting to battle a hoard of soccer moms stocking up for Bastille Day gifts, but they weren't there!

I stopped by yesterday and they still had five silvers!

[fatfish]

What about the rest of the apple stuff, are we likely to see supply catch up demand. I ordered a dual 2.5 and 30" display in June, the display was delivered a month ago and now gathers dust waiting for the dual 2.5, which I've now been told will be October 15.

To add insult to injury I received not one but two promo emails today, saying that they were now available at the Applestore.

[waterbouy]

Originally Posted by fatfish

What about the rest of the apple stuff, are we likely to see supply catch up demand. I ordered a dual 2.5 and 30" display in June, the display was delivered a month ago and now gathers dust waiting for the dual 2.5, which I've now been told will be October 15.

To add insult to injury I received not one but two promo emails today, saying that they were now available at the Applestore.

Fatfish, if the order is still in an Open status you can always call and cancel it, then head to the Apple Store for the CPU. At the very least they may offer you a discount to keep the order open - it has happened before...

- waiting for iMac 20" to arrive on Monday
- first new Mac since a Wallstreet PowerBook in May, 98
- buying iPod today !!!

[barbaloot]

What ever happened to the rumors the mini's would get a software update to match the option on the new clickwheel ipod?

[Porchland]

Originally Posted by hipvictor

I found this link while surfing macsurfer...

http://www.randommaccess.com/news/1095796972.shtml

>>>A Target employee told customers today that iPod minis with a 20GB capacity would be available in store by the end of October. "They're working on them now and we're just waiting for them to come in," he told shoppers, adding that iPods would be bumped up to 60-gig capacities. No information on pricing was available. As of this posting, neither Target nor Apple have responded to our requests for clarification.<<<<

dumb employee?

Surely he was referring the the regular 20GB iPod.

Here's a few retailer web sites I found that are carrying iPod/mini:

Target: 20 GB iPod for $299.99, 40 GB iPod for $399.99, and iPod mini for $249.99.

Costco, which has packages including the dock and 15 iTunes tracks for the 20 GB iPod ($329.99), 40 GB iPod ($399.99) and iPod mini ($269.99). Basically, you get the dock and 15 downloads for $30 on the 20 GB iPod, $20 on the iPod mini and free on the 40 GB iPod (if I'm reading it right).

Wal-Mart has the 20 GB and 40 GB iPod at about a $9 discount each, which works out to about $4 after shipping if you buy it online. (I'm assuming you'd get the full $9 discount in the store.)

I assume Apple must think their supply chain is in good shape if they're allowing these three retailers to move forward. These are probably three of the biggest mass retailers in the country, and that's in addition to all of the HP vendors that will be carrying the HP iPod.

Apple sold 860,000 iPods during the quarter ended June 26, 2004, and that was with major supply problems with the iPod and mini. I haven't heard any forecasts on how many units Apple could sell during the fourth quarter of this year, but I've got to think it will be 2.5 million or more including the HP iPod sales.

[Macmaniac]

I am glad to see things improving, I saw at the NY Apple store that they had a lot of minis behind the counter. However in my experience it still has been a long wait for a mini, I wonder if Apple will report mini's and the normal iPods separately. I would be interested to see how many they have sold.

[gojira]

I was lucky enough to grab a green iPod mini from the Soho Apple Store back in the end of February for my girlfriend's birthday. I went back a few days later and they were all gone! She was very happy, BTW!

After that... nothing!

Recently, I've seen minis in stock and on shelves at several places in NYC. One was even at a photo supply store, which struck me as odd. I'm glad to finally see the minis flowing.

[gensor]

I seen this increase in mini's in CompUSA and my local Apple store in the most recent two weeks. In Apple's most recent conference call they stated that supply would increase greater than orignial projections from the prior quarterly conference call. That is what we are seeing. Some of this is Hitachi ramping new production. The million dollar question is did Apple find another source of supply such as smaller Tosibha hard drive or Seagate hard drive. Start taking those recent delivered mini's apart. I just bet you they also have either Toshiba or Seagate drives in the mini in addition to Hitiachi

[WM.]

Originally Posted by Porchland

I assume Apple must think their supply chain is in good shape if they're allowing these three retailers to move forward. These are probably three of the biggest mass retailers in the country, and that's in addition to all of the HP vendors that will be carrying the HP iPod.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's gonna be a helluva quarter...

Apple sold 860,000 iPods during the quarter ended June 26, 2004, and that was with major supply problems with the iPod and mini. I haven't heard any forecasts on how many units Apple could sell during the fourth quarter of this year, but I've got to think it will be 2.5 million or more including the HP iPod sales.

Yep. Just to clarify, since you didn't mention it, Apple's fiscal year starts/ends toward the end of September. So the 860,000 number was for the third quarter (end of March through end of June), and the fourth quarter (which we're speculating about) would be the end of June through the end of September.

FWIW
WM

[supertex]

I work at Best Buy in Baton Rouge, and we just put out a display model of the mini again this week. We had taken it down so people would quit asking for them. We have five or six of them waiting to be sold for the first time in forever, as opposed to last week when they, along with the 4G 20's were on backorder.

[Porchland]

Originally Posted by WM.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's gonna be a helluva quarter...

Yep. Just to clarify, since you didn't mention it, Apple's fiscal year starts/ends toward the end of September. So the 860,000 number was for the third quarter (end of March through end of June), and the fourth quarter (which we're speculating about) would be the end of June through the end of September.

I was actually referring to the fourth quarter of the calendar year (Oct./Nov./Dec.) when I speculated that Apple might sell 2.5 million iPods in the fourth quarter. But then I saw the CBS Marketwatch report cited above that said Apple and HP intended to ship one million iPods a month starting in October.

If Apple was selling 860,000 units a quarter at -- just for the sake of argument -- a $20 margin per unit, that works out to a quarterly earnings of about $17.2 million on the iPod alone. If Apple maintains the same margin and sells a million units a month, the quarterly earnings on iPods jump to $60 million. It would still only accounts for about 10 percent of Apple's earnings (assuming a $20 margin per unit), but look how many new formerly-non-Apple hands the iPod is going to be in this time next year.

[Sabbath]

Originally Posted by wrldwzrd89

This is good news for everyone, since the iPod minis have been in such high demand, and will likely continue to be in high demand. I'm wondering what has changed in the supply chain to increase the supply so much.

Well everyone but me! I bought two minis the second they were released in Europe, as I was unsure which colour I would prefer in real life. Stupidly I have sat on it a new in box pink mini and am only getting round to selling it now.

[woolman]

Ordered a silver, with engraving, off the Apple site late yesterday. It shipped (from China) before I got into the office this morning.

Two weeks ago when I checked, the wait was two weeks.

[outerspaceapple]

Awesome, Awesome.

[PDubNYC]

Does anyone know if Apple has in fact eliminated the earphone jack/static problem. I know it only affected about 1% of users, but that was some bad press.



whatever Doctor Q

[mariner77]

Originally Posted by PDubNYC

Does anyone know if Apple has in fact eliminated the earphone jack/static problem. I know it only affected about 1% of users, but that was some bad press.



whatever Doctor Q

They solved this problem a long time ago, back in April. No need to worry about it anymore.

[Mainyehc]

Originally Posted by mariner77

They solved this problem [static and jack issue with the iPod Mini] a long time ago, back in April. No need to worry about it anymore.

And... AND what about that defect in the 4G iPods? (you can hear the disk speeding up, THROUGH the headphones, and some STATIC... hmmmmm... I don't think they will fly off the shelves that much after people find out about that, and specially after Apple (and HP) start getting bad press!

Here's the link, from a respectable source (iPodlounge):
http://www.ipodlounge.com/articles_m...d=4776_0_8_0_M

Oh, and by the way, I own a 3G 20GB iPod and was thinking of selling it so I could buy a 4G, also 20GB, until I read about this... Apple didn't comment on that, so I'll wait, and I may eventually forget about it and stick with my 3G... it's €339 less in Apple's hands, and one person which won't find out about the wonderful world of the iPod (because I'm tired of *telling* people how great the iPod and the Mac are, it's easier to *show* 'em or to sell my stuff [selling iMac G4 17'', planning to buy a brand new iMac G5 20''] ) way to go, Apple......