Filed under: Apple Corporate, iTS, Apple Financial
Forrester blog responds to iTunes kerfuffle
"iTunes sales are NOT plummeting!" is the latest headline on the Forrester blog. You know Forrester, don't you? They're the ones behind the report the other day about iPods, iTunes and credit card transactions. That's the report that set everyone talking about whether iTunes was a failure and whether Apple's digital media sales were suddenly collapsing. Apple's stock dipped several percentage points on the news.
Today, Forrester's blog points out that their findings were misinterpreted. iTunes sales did drop after the holiday rush last year but Forrester did not find that iTunes sales as a whole were on a general downward trend. Instead, it looks like iTunes sales are leveling off and that Apple's overall profitability should not be affected; their profits come mostly from iPod sales and not from iTunes.
Good news for Apple lovers. Bad news for the newspapers with their overblown headlines.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
paul said 4:54PM on 12-13-2006
Newspapers? I think you mean blogs. Like Engadget, your sister blog.
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Phosphor said 4:58PM on 12-13-2006
Not to be a spelling wonk or anything, but such a wonderfully weird word ought to be spelled correctly so that we might avoid passing along a bastardized version of it to future generations.It's "kerfuffle."http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-ker1.htm
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/kerfuffle
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Erica Sadun said 5:04PM on 12-13-2006
Thanks dude!
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Phosphor said 5:45PM on 12-13-2006
You're welcome, Ms. Sadun.
Just doin' mah job, Ma'am!
:o)
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Paul said 5:37PM on 12-13-2006
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it The Register that posted the first (mis-)interpretation of the Forrester Report? How 'bout we single them out for special attention?
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Sherman Homan said 7:49PM on 12-13-2006
Very little that is printed has any level of accuracy anymore. The newspapers complain that blogs in specific and the internet in general is "unedited". But look who really needs the accuracy police!
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Yukon said 6:50PM on 12-13-2006
It doesn't take a genius to realize that iTMS sales spike in January because lotsa people get iTMS gift cards in their xmas stockings.
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Erica Sadun said 6:48PM on 12-13-2006
Yukon: the study doesn't take gift cards into account, just credit card purchases.
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Mr Lizard said 6:56PM on 12-13-2006
According to Remy Fiorentino of Forrester, the '65% drop' thing was only based on 181 iTunes buyers anyway.
My guess is someone at Apple leaned on them, and they spat out this (almost) retraction of what the original report implied.
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Stuart said 6:41AM on 12-14-2006
No, I think Newspapers means the BBC news website. (they don't like to miss a trick on Apple bashing).
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