286 million MP3 Players in 4 years

May 3, 2006

On 2005,
we've noticed that 17%
of all holiday season whish lists had an MP3 player on top,
specially wanted by teens. According to In-Stat Research Company, MP3
players will continue to top those charts by 2010 - in fact, they
expect nearly the double of units by then. The reasons behind this are the low
price points and the wide availability of legal music files, such as iTunes, which has surpassed the
billionth sold tune. iTunes also represents a bridge, used by
Apple, to promote its famous music player - iPod, which is owned by 49% of
those who have an MP3 player. But will Apple keep up with the strong Asian
market competition, where some players only cost 20€ ($25)?

The
rapidly growing worldwide market for flash-based and hard disk drive
(HDD)-based players will jump from 140 million units in 2005 to 286
million by 2010, according to the high-tech market research firm. Drivers
for this market include falling prices, the availability of legitimate
subscription and pay-per-download online music sites, increasing flash
memory capacities and enhanced functionality.

In-Stat consumer survey data shows 49% of MP3 player
owners own an Apple iPod. The company predicts that Apple will sustain its
leading positions, however, given that sales of low-end, flash-based
players were especially strong in 2005, particularly in Asian markets
where some players are priced as low as $25, eventually Apple may lose
part of its market share, however, not significantly, as for smaller
makers it is harder to secure enough flash memory
components.

'Apple continues to dominate the market for MP3
players, particularly in the US," says Stephanie Guza, In-Stat
analyst. 'Apple competitors continue to face significant challenges, such
as a constrained Flash memory supply, device and software integration, and
the 'cool factor' associated with Apple's iPod line of
products."

Harddiscs are already at the 60G per 1.8-inch disc, a
milestone on this type of device. The new perpendicular recording methods used to write bits of
data on these magnetic discs can deliver up to 10 time the storage
density of longitudinal recording. With such amount of storage, we can
expect better products with more functionalities - ability to watch movies and
television, play games, surf the internet and so on. Many MP3 players become
obsolete within a year of launch, which atract consumers to buy a newer,
better product. With new digital music stores opening up constantly, the demand
for DRM compatible devices also raises. This technologic strategy is working
because companies are releasing new products every couple of months, while not
updating the older models (the firmware, for example).

If you would like to keep your current MP3 player but still want to
give it a fresh new look, with a lot more functionalities, why don't you have a look
at Rockbox, an open source replacement firmware for MP3
players?

Source: X-Bit Labs