sales

iPhone users have spent $30 million on applications for the new 3G model in the month since it's released. But Apple will get 'only' $9 million of that take. Users can buy applications, produced by third-party developers, from the iTunes store. ... There have been around 60 million application downloads so far, though many of these (estimates say as much as 90%) are free. Paid applications range from around a dollar for novelty items to around ten dollars for games, so an average $5 price would fit the estimates. The most expensive item, a thousand dollar screensaver, was pulled by Apple recently ... (view more)

Apple claims to have sold a million of its new iPhones in three days, but that doesn't mean a million people now have one. The company recently put out a press release saying it had sold the millionth iPhone 3G. Noting the phone is on sale in 21 ... countries, CEO Steve Jobs said "It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world." (Source: apple.com ) However, that figure is somewhat misleading. Fortune magazine reports that Apple only counts its own sales when somebody hands over the money in an Apple store. But ... (view more)

Evidently, Apple's flashy advertising and sleek product design has attracted customers willing to pay high prices for its products. Over the past few years, Apple climbed to the top of the market on high-end desktop and laptop sales, according to a ... recent report by market research company NPD Group. Of all computers costing more than $1,000 sold in 2007, 70% were Mac desktops and 64% Mac laptops. (Source: arstechnica.com ) An interesting report, indeed. Problem is, it doesn't adequately reflect the realities of the industry. Anyone browsing the Apple website will quickly see that there are ... (view more)

The latest study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) shows that software pirates caused the software industry sales losses of nearly $48 billion last year. The fifth annual report says that from 2006 to 2007, overall losses grew by ... $8 billion and worldwide piracy rates increased by 3 percentage points to 38 percent. While overall losses grew, piracy rates dipped in 67 of 108 countries included in the report. The BSA said about half of the increased dollars are attributable to the declining value of the dollar. In an interview conducted by CNET News , BSA President Robert ... (view more)

Amazon recently filed papers with the New York State Supreme Court declaring a problem tax provision to be "invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional." This was an expected response by a retailer attempting to redefine what constitutes the physical ... presence of a company within the geographical boundaries of a state. Confused? So is the state of New York, which contends that Amazon ought to be held responsible for the collection of local sales taxes because the company pays out referral commissions to its affiliates who are registered to a New York address. The provision is part of New York's $ ... (view more)

Not that it should come as any surprise, but Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), Microsoft's first update to (the never ending nightmare known as) Windows Vista, has reportedly been causing more problems for users. When Windows Vista was ... released to the public over a year ago, a plethora of users found out that it was riddled with speed and compatibility issues. So much so that even Microsoft executives complained, as revealed by a pending class action lawsuit. As reported by our own John Lister, Microsoft recently released Windows Vista SP1 as a means to improve performance and ... (view more)

Sales of Apple's iPhone remain strong as illustrated by the release of figures for the first quarter of fiscal year 2008 (last 92 days of 2007). The company reported that it sold 2,315,000 iPhones during this period, which also encompasses the ... holiday season. The latest figures provided by CEO Steve Jobs during his Macworld 2008 keynote presentation on January 15, stated that Apple has passed the 4 million unit threshold. (Source: arstechnica.com ) The impressive total amounts to an average of 20,000 units sold per day, giving the iPhone a 20 percent market share of international smart phone ... (view more)

A few years ago, we used to joke that world video game sales exceeded the Canadian defense budget. Although the latter has raised slightly since that time (from under $10 billion to over $12 billion and counting), the sale of video games has ... absolutely skyrocketed. According to statistics from research firm NPD Group, video games had a record year in 2007, with sales reaching an astonishing $17.9 billion. By comparison, those numbers are up 43 per cent from 2006, a year marked by Microsoft's early start on the next generation of video game consoles. Sony and Nintendo launched their ... (view more)

Just months after it appeared Paramount's decision to exclusively back Toshiba's HD-DVD would save the format from what seemed an inevitable demise, Sony's Blu-ray is again threatening to snuff out its competition. Sales figures peg Blu-ray movie ... titles well ahead of the competition with the 2007 holiday season now just another footnote in the history books. According to statistics filtering out of the Blu-ray Disc Association's recent press event, Sony's format outsold the competition from HD-DVD by 2-to-1 when it came to total 2007 movie sales. Moreover, there was not a single week during ... (view more)

Although retailers reported an increase in sales this past holiday season, they're not particularly happy about it. Many analysts are startled that U.S. spenders didn't match an expected sales increase pegged at 4.5 per cent. According to major ... credit card company MasterCard, Americans spent more money this holiday season than last year, a surprising fact given a relatively stagnant U.S. dollar and more broadly, the U.S. economy. MasterCard finds that retailers experienced a 3.6 per cent rise in sales in 2007 over 2006. Earlier in the shopping season, most researchers pegged the holidays to " ... (view more)