March 3, 2006
Music phones to slice into iPod growth
According to Reuters, the biggest threat to Apple's iPod and the portable music player industry, is a device already nestling in a billion pockets: the mobile phone.
"Sales of cellphones that can store and play back music are climbing, raising hopes among handset producers like Sony Ericsson and Motorola that it will be their next growth driver.
"You have the ability to talk, take pictures and listen to music in one device. The convenience factor is big," said Simon Leung, senior vice president of Motorola Asia.
Simpler music devices with flash memory chips that store up to a thousand songs are the most vulnerable, analysts say.
"The music phone is not going to significantly impact the high-end, high-capacity hard disk market but it will certainly have a major impact on the low-end flash market," said Peter King of Strategy Analytics.
... "In Asia, there is a huge status symbol with the mobile phone where folks don't really think twice about spending $500 or $600 to buy the latest mobile phone but are not willing to spend $200 or $300 for an MP3 player," said Claudio Checchia of research firm IDC Asia Pacific.
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