Federica Laricchia
Research expert covering the global consumer technology industry
iPod - statistics & facts
The iPod, Apple's pocket-sized music device, was first released to the consumer market in 2001. Two years later, the company launched the iTunes Music Store, offering an innovative combination of software and hardware for music listening. As a result, the iPod was a dominant product within the digital music player market and is considered one of Apple's biggest successes. Over the course of 18 years through to 2019, Apple released iPod models such as the Classic, Mini, Nano, Shuffle, and Touch. The only model still available and in production is the seventh-generation iPod Touch, first released in May 2019.
iPod sales
In the first quarter of 2009, iPod revenue accounted for nearly 29 percent of the company's revenue. By the fourth quarter of 2014, this share was reduced to less than one percent, generating just 410 million U.S. dollars in revenue. The beginning of 2015 saw Apple no longer report revenue from declining iPod sales separately. Instead, iPod sales were included within the ‘Wearables, Home and Accessories’ segment, a category that includes, and is dominated by, the sales of Apple Watch, Beats products, Apple TV, Beats Electronics, and Apple-branded and third-party accessories. In 2020, this operating segment accounted for just over 10 percent of Apple’s revenue through the year. However, Apple's overall revenue was not impacted by declining iPod sales thanks to the launch and growth of these and other products.Smartphone market growth
Introduced to consumers in 2007, the iPhone has thrived on the market. Analysts suggest that the development of the iPhone has led to the cannibalization of the iPod, with the overall market for portable music players observing a slow down due to increased smartphone popularity. Along with other features, smartphones also can play and store music. Effectively, Apple is making one of its products, the iPod, obsolete. The iPhone’s share of Apple’s total revenue has risen from nearly 25 percent in the first quarter of 2009 to over 40 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, reaching as high as 70 percent in previous years. Besides the rise of smartphones, the digital music market has undergone major changes over the years. Consumers have been changing their habits and turning to other ways to listen to music, such as streaming.
