Interest In The Zune Skyrockets, But iPods Are What’s Selling
Oct 6th, 2009 | By James Lewin | Category: General, iPhone, iPods & Portable Media Players 
There’s still hope for the Microsoft Zune, based on a new teen survey on portable media players.
- 13% of the teens surveyed that plan to buy a portable media player plan to buy a Zune in the next 12 months, up from 0% a year ago.
- 73% plan to buy an iPod, down from 100% a year ago.
It’s clear that, a year ago, the Year Zunethousand fiasco had effectively killed the Zune’s buzz.
While we wrote earlier that Microsoft struck out with the Zune HD, many teens now have a different opinion.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s uphill battle got steeper in the last year:
- Apple’s share of the portable media player market grew to 87 percent, up from 84 percent one year ago.
- 22 percent of the teens surveyed intend to purchase an iPhone in the next six months;
What’s not clear is whether teen interest in the iPhone is cannibalizing their interest iPods.
What do you think? Do you think that Microsoft’s prospects for the Zune are substantially better this year?
via AppleInsider
First, a comment: the Spring '09 numbers are almost certainly bogus. Even accounting for the fact that it's an online poll, numbers like that simply don't happen in the real world — you can take it as a rule of thumb that if any poll reports 100% agreement on anything it is wrong. Add that all results before and after report fairly consistent numbers, and likelyhood is that the real Spring '09 numbers were consistent as well, and that the reported numbers are simply garbage.____Which actually means that the entire premise of the article is wrong, as interest has probably not skyrocketed, but rather stayed fairly steady.____(oh, and also, Spring '09 was not "a year ago")____Second, I am a Zune HD owner, and I like it a lot. But I don't think it'll change much. There's simply no consumer awareness of Zune, and even if there was, it wouldn't help much (case in point: most people have heard of Macs, they're shown in the media constantly, but ownership rates aren't changing by much). Apple has really managed to lock down this market, and I doubt anything will change that for the foreseeable future.
I remember the old days when home computers were just getting started. Back then Apple was the popular brand for two reasons; it was a little cheaper than the PCs and it was really easy to clone. Then PCs became the popular choice (and the market also became populated with clones to the point where the clones have taken over). The fact is that markets change. One generation may not think as the previous did. While iPods are the player of choice now, in ten years there will be many various players on the market and the Zune could become the dominant player again.
These numbers mean absolutely nothing. Kids want what other kids already have and for now that would be the iPod. It is like any other product really.
I have a Zune HD and absolutely adore it. What makes me different is I try to stay off the 'me too' bandwagon and so have never owned a iPod, instead vying for players from SanDisk, and then the gen II Zune. If by some miracle the Zune HD could seamlessly emulate Apple App Store apps then the iPod touch would be a distant memory.