Analyst: iPod sales to hit 23.5 million in 2006

Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf expects Apple to sell 13.3 million iPods in 2005 and an impressive 23.5 million iPods in 2006. He is also looking for 100 million Windows users to own iPods by 2008. In a research note to clients, Wolf said that a flash-based iPod could be “an opportunistic move to quickly capture an even higher share of the portable music player market.” He also suggests that iPod mini drive production costs could now have fallen by a third (the costs decline as yields increase, because overheads are spread across more units). “Apple should have sufficient margin to reduce the price of the mini from $249 to $199 once supply catches up with demand,” Wolf said.