Boom times for mp3 players?
p2pnet.net News:- Is digital music finally going mainstream? According to market research firm IDC, the MP3 portable market will boom over the next five years into a $58 billion industry.
The biggest growth according to IDC will come from a rebound in portable flash players. Presently larger hard drive based players like the iPod lead the market, but significant drops in the price of flash memory will make lighter, high memory flash portables more affordable. 12.5 million flash players were sold in 2003. IDC predicts that number will jump four-fold to 50 million units in 2008.
The 20GB Zen Touch is the latest iPod challenger and is available on Amazon
IDC makes other predictions:
Apple will be getting some stiff competition in the coming year. A slew of manufacturers will soon offer players utilizing the small hard drives that helped propel the iPod to number one. This will allow them to allow compete more favorably against Apple’s player and chip away at its market lead.
Subscriptions to pay-per-download services will grow and drive demand for players. IDC did not make any mention about the continued effect of the free P2P services, which already deliver millions of song tracks a day.
The MP3 CD and MiniDisc will grow only modestly during this period. Meanwhile the mature home CD player market will stagnate.
DVDs and other electronic devices that support compressed audio recordings like cell phones and gaming devices will represent competitive options to audio-only devices and are expected to lead the market during this period.
IDC did not make any comment on the aging cassette format, which the growing digital music market is expected to replace. The holdover that sustains cassettes comes from the fact it is the dominant format in automobiles. Digital music is only slowly making its way into new cars – lead mostly by satellite radio at this point – but soon more hard drive based car stereos are expected to appear.
Richard Menta – MP3newswire
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See:-
market will boom – Booming Market for MP3 Players According to IDC’s Latest Forecast, September 21, 2004
September 23rd, 2004 at 3:22 am
Clear Channel you are Doomed!!!!!!!!!! Get all the Payola you can while you can because your days are numbered!!!!!!!!
September 24th, 2004 at 7:12 pm
Momocita,
Look the title of that chicagoland REDEye cover page is “THIS butt’s for you,” and you got to admitt I went to Florida, Goergia, New York, California, and so many states trying to get the information that the “Pipper Alley,” investers of Chicago gave me after I spent All that time looking for You. I went to jail for something that I did not do and when I got out of jail 12865 S. Emerald in the south side of CHICAGO ILLINOIS WITH THE ZIP CODE OF 60628 WAS TAKEN FROM ME WITH YOUR PHONE NUMBER AND WHEN I TALKED TO YOU AGAIN I TRIED TO REMEMBER THE NUMBER AND I GOT DISTRACTED AND WHEN I TRIED TO PUT THE NUMBER IN THE PHONE YOU SAID YOU WAS GOING TO CALL ME BACK AND YOU DIDN’T,..
Now this is a better day the music is still in my head and on CD’s,…… and everybody is still saying I HAVE to really be CRAZY to put them down,… and THAT I HAVE TO SELL THEM,….
GOLDEN