unit sales

Macmillan CEO Defends E-Book Price Hike, Again

Peter Kafka in Media on March 3, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

Cheers to Macmillan CEO John Sargent, who has taken to writing long open letters to his readers about changes in his company’s e-book pricing model. Alas, the newest installment, on the company’s blog, doesn’t add much more to the discussion.

Book Publishers Beware! At iTunes, Expensive Music Equals Slower Sales.

Peter Kafka in Media on February 9, 2010 at 6:56 am PT

Book publishers itching to raise the prices on their e-books should pay attention to the music labels, which raised the prices on their downloads last spring. Consumers, it turns out, like paying less for stuff.

Global Chip Sales Down 9 Percent in 2009–Not 11 Percent

John Paczkowski in News on February 1, 2010 at 7:30 am PT

Global chip sales fell nine percent in 2009, beaten down by the econalypse, which hamstrung demand for all manner of consumer electronics. A nasty drop, but not nearly as bad as it could have been or, indeed, what was expected. Because at $226.3 billion, total chip sales for the year were far better than the $219.7 billion the Semiconductor Industry Association had been expecting.

Palm Disappoints

John Paczkowski in News on December 17, 2009 at 1:26 pm PT

The second-quarter loss Palm reported Thursday afternoon was narrower than the one it reported last year, but still fell far short of what Wall Street had been expecting. The company did manage to ship a total of 783,000 smartphone units during the quarter, though, a five percent decrease from last quarter but a year-over-year increase of 41 percent.

Video Game Sales Tank

John Paczkowski in News on November 13, 2009 at 5:50 am PT

If the latest sales data are any indication, the videogame industry may be headed for a rough holiday season. NPD Group reports that revenue from consoles and software plummeted during October, falling 16.4 percent from September and 19 percent year-over-year. It was the industry’s seventh consecutive monthly decline.

Amazon's Blowout Q3

John Paczkowski in News on October 22, 2009 at 1:04 pm PT

According to comScore, Web traffic to Amazon in the U.S. rose 14.8 percent, far outstripping that of overall U.S. Internet traffic, which grew just 3.5 percent. “It appears that Amazon is gaining share the old-fashioned way,” ThinkEquity analyst Ed Weller noted last week, “by acquiring more and more customers…and selling more to each of them.” Judging from the nice gain in third-quarter earnings the company posted after Thursday’s closing bell, that would seem to be the case.

Amazon’s Blowout Q3

John Paczkowski in News on October 22, 2009 at 1:04 pm PT

According to comScore, Web traffic to Amazon in the U.S. rose 14.8 percent, far outstripping that of overall U.S. Internet traffic, which grew just 3.5 percent. “It appears that Amazon is gaining share the old-fashioned way,” ThinkEquity analyst Ed Weller noted last week, “by acquiring more and more customers…and selling more to each of them.” Judging from the nice gain in third-quarter earnings the company posted after Thursday’s closing bell, that would seem to be the case.

Not Dead Yet! The CD Still Rules Music (But iTunes Is Closing the Gap).

Peter Kafka in Media on August 18, 2009 at 6:41 am PT

Ready to toss dirt on the old, unloved CD? You’re going to have to wait a while. Compact discs are increasingly hard to find (at least in physical stores), but someone out there keeps buying them: The ancient format still makes up the majority of music sales in the U.S. And since album-length CDs are a whole lot more lucrative for the industry than iTunes singles, expect to see the industry cling to them as long it can get away with it.

No Matter How Hard You Try, You Can’t Get Apple to Say Anything Nice About a Netbook

Peter Kafka in Media on July 21, 2009 at 3:32 pm PT

This is now an Apple earnings-call tradition: Analysts try their hardest to convince Apple executives to express interest in the booming market for cheap netbooks and Apple executives make it perfectly clear how much disdain they have for netbooks. But an $800 iTablet? That’s something else altogether…