Growing market for refurbished and used iPods
Published November 5th, 2005
The popular iPod Nano and the just-released video iPod are expected to lead a surge of holiday sales for Apple Computer. Research firm Fulcrum Global Partners predicts Apple will sell 10 million iPods in the fourth quarter, a strong follow-up to the 7 million sold in the previous quarter. But not all of these sales will be to new iPod owners.
Piper Jaffray analysts say about 30 percent of the iPod purchasers are now repeat buyers who are either replacing an existing, earlier-generation iPod or adding to their range of styles (such as an iPod Shuffle and a video iPod).
If the average lifespan of an iPod is about 1.5 years, what happens to the older models?
Analysts say most users hand down their iPods to friends or family once they purchase a new one. Some simply throw them away.
Increasingly, however, consumers are capitalizing on the growing iPod phenomenon by selling their used iPods for cash or as a trade-in toward a new device.
Related Articles
