Music mobiles a threat to iPod and other portable music players?
Skip contentIsn’t the Walkman branded Sony Ericsson W800i, Motorola’s ROKR iTunes or the newly launched Nokia 6630 Music Edition a significant threat to Apple’s iPod and other portable music players? According to market watcher Canalys the answer is, for now, no.
Canalys, said the MP3 player makers like Apple, Creative and Rio are, for now, safe from cell phone manufacturing rivals, but they also said that Music-centric phones will clearly have some impact on the portable music player market.
The portable music player market has grown very fast over the last 6 months and according to Canalys it’s likely to continue to do so despite the inclusion of music playback capabilities in an increasing number of cell phones, the latest of these being the Nokia 6630 Music Edition, Motorola ROKR with iTunes and the Walkman branded Sony Ericsson W800i.
"A mobile phone-based player doesn’t offer much to a high-volume music consumer. The convenience of having to carry one device less will usually be outweighed by the design compromises that result", said Canalys analyst Rachel Lashford.
That is maybe true for a high-volume music consumer, but is the average music consumer going to buy the iPod Nano if he has a Nokia 6630 Music Edition or a N91 music smartphone, which has a 4 GB hard drive? I say no, unless he is a gadget lover.
Rachel Lashford also said that "a heavy user isn’t going to pay a premium to download each track over the air to a phone when there are cheaper service alternatives that offer a more sophisticated browsing experience, interface and file management."
I agree, but the prices of mobile downloads will go down and many people upload songs from their CD collections to the phone or portable music players. And then there is the sad fact that if you want MP3 music you can probably get it for free on the internet.
Article provided by:
Nicolas Fogelholm of About-Nokia.Com
www.about-nokia.com/blog
