"The queue is getting longer and longer so the message to consumers is buy now and don't delay", says Steve Ford, General Manager Renaissance Apple division.

It would seem that iPods are getting hard to get in New Zealand and Australia. Although supplies for the video-capable 30GB and 60GB iPods are still holding up, the iPod nano is in great demand and the suppliers just can't keep up with it.

Apparently, this shortage came about because Apple did not give enough of a prior warning before launching the newest iPod range in October.
"The main factor is this huge demand. Last quarter Apple sold three times as many iPods as it did during Christmas 2004", says Ford.

But this situation is profitable for others like Creative, a rival MP3 player manufacturer.
"No doubt about it, this is going to be an MP3 Christmas. The real growth started about six months ago and we have absolutely no stock issues", he says.

Nick Angelucci, Creative Marketing Manager says his company planned and estimated the market size in Australia for what will be its biggest Christmas yet.
"Creative's microdrive players are doing extremely well and that's in direct competition with Apple's new models", he says.

Oh yes, Creative has been running shoulder and shoulder with Apple on this one, and they knew this was going to happen and stocked up to meet the demand. Or is it more like their devices have been constantly loosing ground to the Pod and now that it's Christmas and the supply can barely keep up with the demand, they have stockpiles gathering dust that they are hoping they can get rid of.

Will people buy Creative devices instead of Pods? It seems more likely that those people will buy a Pod from an alternate source, rather than go Creative, but maybe that's just me.