Zune Sales Update aka Zune DOA
At the end of October, I posted my Top 5 Reasons Why Zune would fail. Now, Microsoft’s new music player has launched. So, how is it selling in the market? Has the Zune been a huge success? Or was my prediction that Zune would fail correct?
Looking at the top 100 chart of electronic product sales on Amazon.com is illuminating. As of now, the positions of music players in the electronics chart is as follows:
1. iPod Black 30GB
3. iPod nano Silver 2GB
4. SanDisk MP3 Player Black 2GB
5. iPod Black 80GB
6. iPod nano Pink 4GB
12. iPod nano Black 8GB
21. iPod nano Silver 4GB
23. SanDisk MP3 Player Silver 1GB
25. Zune Black 30GB
28. iPod nano Black 4GB
29. Apple Shuffle Silver 1GB
33. iPod nano Green 4GB
36. iPod White 30GB
39. iPod nano Blue 4GB
42. iPod Black 60GB
43. Sandisk MP3 Player Blue 0.5GB
52. Sandisk MP3 Player Black 8GB
54. iPod White 80GB
58. Creative Zen Vision Black 30GB
68. iPod Black 30GB
75. Sandisk MP3 Player Black 2GB
90. Sandisk MP3 Player Black 4GB
…
111. Zune Brown 30GB
….
262. Zune White 30GB
(UPDATE: As of today, 21 November, the positions in the chart are as follows:
Zune Black - #51
Zune Brown - #164
Zune White - #305 )
Given the level of marketing push around the product, it looks like the Zune has almost completely failed in the market place. Of the three versions of the player (brown, black and white), only the black version is in the top 100. Microsoft’s favourite - the brown Zune - is outside the top 100 at #111, and the white version is languishing at #262. I’ve seen various pro-Microsoft commentators saying that the brown Zune looks good. No. It doesn’t. I have to wonder which part of “people don’t want a brown MP3 player” these guys don’t understand.
I was expecting sales to be poor, but the Zune is beating even my expectations in terms of poor sales - it’s effectively dead on arrival, - just as Microsoft’s UMPC was. I’ve aseen various people, including analysts, saying that this is a first-generation product, and that Microsoft shouldn’t be judged on the first-generation, but on subsequent generations of product. Well that’s fine. And it’s even reasonable point to make in the case of the UMPC, where Microsoft is pushing the limits of the technology. But Zune… well, Zune is just an MP3 player! Hardly revolutionary. There’s no excuse for Zune version 1 to be so clunky and badly designed - it’s just incompetence.
If I was a Microsoft shareholder, I would be asking why it seems that no-one in the company is sufficiently competent to recognise a fundamentally flawed product when they see one.
DAngerMouse wrote:
People are saying it’s new, give it time, etc. So here is MS w/ billions to spend, & iPod/Apple w/ much less resources has been improving hardware, software, content for 5 yrs now, & other MP3 players were out even before that, & have been improving, & MS has ALREADY tried PlaysForSure, MSN Music, & many PlaysForSure stores: Rhapsody, Walmart, Yahoo & who knows what else. This device is NOT new, it is a rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat that has been out for some time. MS had every opportunity & resource to hit a homerun & they failed. They simply failed, & there is no excuse for it. If they were serious about it, they could have done a more acceptable job. They are not some 2-bit startup, new to the scene, w/ a few $1000 to invest. Give it time?? They have had all the time & money in the world already! It must be really hard to just design, build & market a quality product, either that or it takes something that money, half-hearted efforts, & convoluted deals with RIAA companies, won’t buy.
Posted 22 Nov 2006 at 3:04 pm ¶
Marc Dencker wrote:
Maybe it is because you can get it cheaper at Dell or Costco (and probably others)
eitherway read this and you might get it: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_49/b4012001.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily
Posted 24 Nov 2006 at 9:17 pm ¶