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Apple Cuts IPod Shuffle Price To $49

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By CHRIS FOURNIER, Bloomberg News

Published: February 20, 2008

Apple cut the price of the least-expensive iPod, the Shuffle, to $49 after its media players sales slowed last quarter. Price for the 1-gigabyte model is 38 percent less than the previous $79. A new version with double the storage will be $69, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said Tuesday.

The bigger Shuffle, which clips onto clothing, can hold about 500 songs. The cheaper models may help revive orders for the best-selling media player after the pace slowed to 5 percent last quarter, compared with more than 15 percent in each of the four before that.

"This makes the Shuffle more competitive in terms of a price-capacity ratio," NPD Group's Ross Rubin said. "While Apple had a good holiday season, the market has been slowing down somewhat." Before Tuesday's cut, SanDisk Corp. and Creative Technology Ltd. sold music players with more capacity at lower prices, he said.

Apple fell $2.45, or 2 percent, to $122.18 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have declined 38 percent this year.

The Shuffles come in blue, green, silver, red and purple. The 1-gigabyte version holds about 240 songs and can play music for as long as 12 hours, according to Apple's Web site.

This month, Apple introduced pricier iPod models with double the storage of older versions to encourage shoppers to spend. Apple has sold more than 140 million iPods.

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