BusinessWeek reports yesterday that "Jobs said in his remarks that
Apple's goal will be to sell 10 million units by 2008, which would
account for roughly 1% of the phones that will be sold this year. It's
an aggressive goal, but hardly audacious, given that Apple will pass
the 200 million mark in iPods sold sometime this year."
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2007/tc20070110_535...

I wonder where they came up with the 200M iPod mark.  Does anyone
recall an announcement of having sold the 100 millionth iPod?  Part of
me thinks that there would be a big countdown like the billionth song
on iTunes.  Maybe that's too hokey....like the 1 millionth customer
schtick.

Apple filings show about 80M iPods through FY06 (Sep 30 2006).  [i
don't have 01, 02, or 03 in my notebook, but 04 was 4.4M.  I'm guessing
that's about what Apple sold in the first three years of the product.
Maybe I'm underestimating the number in my laziness, but not more than
5-10M max.  Hardly a dent in the run to 200M]  So, BusinessWeek says
200M in the next year?  Hmmm.  120M is a lot in one year, unless there
was a huge holiday quarter.

I don't put much stock in a fleeting comment in a consumer publication,
but it was interesting to note nonetheless.

Another interesting thought.  Apple's pricing models (discussed above)
keep revenues steady with volume.  Not sure if I'm saying that right,
but an average cost of $200 per iPod last year is going to be
consistent next year (excluding the iPhone line).  Speaking of iPhone,
has everyone thought about how the $499 and $599 price points don't
include the subsidy from Cingular?  Maybe the subsidy is a profit-share
as someone (realtyprov?) suggested, but it's at least $200 a phone
based on current products in the marketplace.

In searching for "100 million iPods," i came across this analyst's
report:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=10252

"A leading Wall Street analyst expects 100 million Windows users to own
iPods by 2008."  He also predicted 23.6M by 2006, which is under by
about 50%.  Growth rate has been phenomenal.