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The digital music player competition is heating up just in time for the holiday season. Reports are all over the internet about the success of the iPod. Research company The NPD Group states that the iPod has a hold on 92.1 percent of the hard drive-based digital music player market. That same group reported that the iPod has an 82 percent share of the market in U.S. retail stores. These figures are rising. The iPod continues to eat up market share of other products.
Apple continues to have success, but can they keep it up?
The iPod is a trendy item among both young and old. Piper Jaffray & Co. surveyed 600 high school students and found that they listed the iPod as number 4 on their wish lists, right behind clothes, money and a car.
In the last week, a slue of new digital music players are popping up from iPod competitors. Creative, a leader in digital entertainment products for PC users, announced the Zen Micro, a 5GB player that is 6mm shorter than the iPod mini. They claim that it hold twice as much music by using the WMA format at 64kbps. Following the success of the iPod Mini with its multiple colors, the Zen micro is available in ten different colors.
MPIO added three new digital music players to their line. The MPIO FL300, FY400 and HD300. These players support various music formats such as MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG; and Napster, MSN, RealNetworks, MusicOne, MusicMatch, and many others. The FL300 and FY400 are flash players available in sizes of 128MB, 256MB and 1GB, while the HD300 uses a 20GB hard drive.
Rumors abound the internet about new digital music players every day. Dell might produce the Pocket DJ 5, a 5GB competitor to the iPod Mini. Camera maker Olympus may even take a shot at the iPod, offering 5 GB and 20 GB hard drive models with LCD screens and a built in cameras.
Currently, is offering over one million songs the five largest recording labels and over 600 independent labels. The MSN Music Store is now boasting 1 million songs and other players are already in the game including MusicMatch, RealNetworks, and even Wal-Mart. Researchers are reporting that consumers paying for downloads fell from a peak of 1.3 million in April 2004 to nearly one million users per month in May, June, and July.
Why doesn’t Apple license their ACC format or buy a license for WMA? It's unclear whether working with MSN, Real, Napster or other music services would boost iPod sales. For now, Apple wants to own both sides of the spectrum with the iTunes Music Store and their iPod line.
NPD also stated that the number of consumers buying from a peak of 1.3 million in April 2004 to 1 million a month.
What’s left for Apple? To continue building loyalty to their products and to continue innovating. The latest Apple rumor is a 60GB color screen iPod. Probably not for watching videos, but more likely for viewing pictures. Let’s hope that this holds true. I would also like to see FM radio capabilities built in. Wi-Fi would also be nice, even if it were only to hook up to iTMS, download more songs while on the go. While I am at it, stuff all of that into the smallest casing as possible. Or just implant it into my arm.
Please Apple, keep on innovating! I want to see more out of future iPods. The competition is right on Apple’s heals and unless Apple comes out with something new, the iPod will get trampled over.