Raw Data Report: Consumer Electronics

Each day, Wall Street is flooded with stock research offering a multitude of conflicting investment opinions. As such, TickerMine is not in the business of providing more opinions. We believe that accurate raw data points can be used to gain insight in to the stock selection and valuation process.

At Least Half of the Mobile Phone Retailers Carry or Plan to Carry Apple's (AAPL) iPhone

Tickermine interviewed various mobile phone retailers across the country to determine whether they carried Apple's iPhone or something similar, and if not, whether they had plans to carry the iPhone. Of the twenty-one stores polled, seven (33%) carried the iPhone. Fourteen stores (67%) did not carry the iPhone but four (29%) stated that they had plans to. Eleven (52%) of the stores interviewed reported carrying similar devices to the iPhone such as LG's Voyager (29%) and the Motorola (MOT) Q (10%). Two (29%) of the retailers that carried the iPhone, also carried the Blackberry (RIMM) and LG's Voyager.

Wireless Routers Generally in Stock; Linksys Continues to Lead in Best Selling and Best Value

Following up on a February 2008 poll, Tickermine recently polled employees at Best Buy (BBY) (58% of responses), Circuit City (CC) (26%), Radio Shack (RSH) (5%), Wal-Mart (WMT) (5%) and Fry's (4%). We asked about wireless routers and learned that 74% of respondents said that Linksys has the best ones and 18% though Net Gear routers were tops. When asked which was the best value router, Linksys again was again the first choice, but with only 32% of the responses, Dynex was next on the list with 18% and Net Gear had 16%. The stores generally had routers in stock with 79% of them responding that they were not out of stock on any wireless routers.

Most Gaming Stores will Stock Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) Wii within One Week

Nintendo of America, the maker of the insanely popular Nintendo Wii consoles, says the inventory of the game is improving and a good thing too for fans. Tickermine surveyed 32 electronics, game and console stores across the nation this week and asked whether the Nintendo Wiis were in stock, if not, how long before more arrived? The stores included GameStop (GME), EB Games, Blockbuster Video (BBI), Toys R Us and Best Buy. Thirteen or 41% of respondents claimed that the Nintendo Wii was not in stock, while 19 or 59% said they stocked the console. Of those who said they did not stock Nintendo Wii, 16 or 50% said they would have the console within one week, 9 respondents or 28% said it would be two weeks and 7 or 22% said it would be four or more weeks before they would stock the product.

GameStop's Best Selling Game is Halo 3, Survey Says. Grand Theft Auto will be the Next Biggie

GameStop Corp, the world's largest videogame retailer is growing nicely with announcements last month of better than expected numbers, across the board. Tickermine looked into 28 different locations of the Grapevine, TX based firm and asked the following: What is the best selling video game, the best selling video game consule and what will the next best selling game be three months from now? Halo 3 was cited as the best selling game by six respondents or 21% followed by Call of Duty and then Rainbox Six Las Vegas (each with four respondents or 14%). Grand Theft Auto, Guitar Hero, Mario and Sonic: Olympic Games, Mario Kart for Wii and Metal Gear Solid were each mentioned twice or 7% and Super Smash Bros, Rock Band, Grand Turismo 5 and Star Wars were all cited once each or 4%. Our respondents thought that the best video game consoles were the Nintendo Wii and then the PS3; both were mentioned 10 times or by 36% of those polled. The XBox 360 was cited seven times or by 25% of respondents and the PC was mentioned once or 4%. Projections for the next best selling game ranged from Grand Theft Auto with 16 respondents or 57%, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Bundle got three mentions or 11%. Additionally, Half Life was mentioned twice or 7.14% with Battlefield: Bad Company, Civil War Mysteries, Frontline, Gods of War, Iron Man, NFL Madden 2009 and Rock Band for Wii were each mentioned once or 4%.

iPod Remains Dominant MP3 Player, Music Phones Preferred by Majority over MP3 Players

In TickerMine's most recent survey on the MP3 player market, the Apple iPod continued to dominate as the "best" MP3 player according to employees of electronics retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio Shack and Fry's. The iPod was seen as "best" by 75% of respondents, this was the same response rate as seen in our February survey. Apple's iPod was followed in our March survey by the Creative Micro Zen MP3 player which was "best" according to 6% of respondents. The Sandisk Sansa MP3 player line was seen as the cheapest in the most recent survey by 27% of respondents, up from 21% of respondents in our February survey. The Apple iPod line was seen as cheapest by 24% of respondents with the bulk of those (16%) citing the iPod Shuffle as the cheap model in Apple's line. The Coby MP3 player line was seen as cheapest by 21% of respondents. This is a brand that has not shown up in our surveys before and appears to be gaining some prominence among electronic retailers at the low end of the MP3 player market. The Best Buy brand Insignia was seen as cheapest by only 6% of respondents despite the fact that 55% of the respondents were Best Buy employees. This compares to our February survey where the Insignia brand was seen as cheapest by 27% of respondents. 59% of respondents stated that they though a cell phone with built in music capability was a better device to have than a stand alone MP3 player. The convenience of a single device that is always with its user was cited as the primary reason for preferring a music enabled cell phone over an MP3 player. The 41% of respondents preferring the stand alone MP3 player cited low storage and poor battery life as weaknesses of the cell phone and advantages to the MP3 player.

Comments

[raman kandola]

AAPL has been maintaining a significant steps to bring an edge, and the hype it has created in all the products they have. Any one can buy a $50 dollar MP3, but they would prefer to buy a $250 dollar I-pod. Same with the phone's, you can get a free phone from the all the service providor, but the consumers are willing to fork out $500 dollar for this smart phone (I Phone).

I am still confused why the wall street is not at all able to comprehend by pricing this stock lower. It looks like they are
not able to make the some observation what the main street, has
been observing for the past few years.

[Ken Singh]

Enter your comment here Add "RIMM" scam to the findings:

DEPARTMENT OF TELCOM ENFORCES CYBER LAW ON MOBILE OPERATORS TO SHUT BB SERVICE
INDIAN PARLIAMENT SESSION..........QUESTIONS RAISED ON NATION SECURITY THREAT FROM BLACKBERRY SERVICE......

CIRCULAR NOTICE HANDED TO MOBILE OPERATORS TO OBEY THE CYBER LAW AND SHUT DOWN ANY BES/BIS SERVICE FROM REASEARCH IN MOTION ASAP

AIRTEL COMMENTS ....LAUGHABLE....AIRTEL HAS MORE TO LOOSE THAN OTHER CARRIERS

CHINA STILL NO BLACKBERRY SALE.......WHAT DID CHINA DEMAND FROM THESE CROOKS?

ENTERPRISE NOW WAKING UP TO THIS SCAM PUSH EMAIL...WHICH IS CREATING PANIC AMONG ENTERPRISE PUSH EMAIL USERS AS THEY FIND THEIR EMAILS CAN BE STORED AND READ BY ALL NATIONS

((((ONE PONZI WONDER BUSINESS MODEL WILL BUST NEXT))))

The Indian BlackBerry Ban Back On… At Least Temporarily
The Home Ministry of India has asked telecom operators to halt certain BlackBerry services until an approved monitoring system that will allow the government to intercept and decrypt messages sent between BlackBerry devices and the secure network they run on is put into place.

The department of telecommunications (DoT) and Research in Motion have been going back and forth with proposed solutions to India’s security concerns for the past several weeks without coming to a general consensus and thus, the government has issued temporary ban on all PIN messaging, BIS email, and BES email.

Sources say that RIM has asked that the be given until the end of the month to address the security concerns. BlackBerry service is still working right now, however, the heat is on for RIM. India represents way too big an opportunity for RIM not to come up with an acceptable solution.

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