Perhaps Apple shouldn’t get too excited about the launch of its iPhone, now just about two months away. The Times of London just published a piece that examines the rapid growth of music-playing cellphones and how this growth threatens not only the iPhone, but Apple’s main cash cow, the iPod. While Apple may have just sold its 100 millionth iPod last week, Sony Ericsson, for example, sold around 17 million Walkman-branded cellphones in the past year alone. Kinda makes the iPod’s march to 100 million seem sluggish. And with the price of storage cards—the main impediment to music-playing cellphone’s growth—ever dropping, the likes of Nokia and the aforementioned Sony Ericsson just may stand in the way of Apple’s dominance of the digital music market. That’s music to the record labels’ ears.
Phone rivals threaten to spoil iPod’s party [TimesOnline]
How many of those are being used as MP3 players? I have a w810i, and find it a bit annoying to use as an MP3 player, so I usually still have my nano. No question I would use it more if the interface was a bit better and it didn’t require that silly adapter so I could use my own headphones (the cord gets to epic lengths quickly…).
Plus I can’t imagine that Apple doesn’t have an iPhone nano in development with a smaller profile and maybe even hard-keys (and a smaller touchscreen perhaps for browsing?) I agree they need to get product out now, and the threat of these music phones are why they have to enter the market, but it is not like it is too late or anything.
Well, this does seem to be something out there, but I fail to see how this is really a big threat, after all the iTunes capable Motorola phone has been out for a while too. As for Sony… I just went through an ordeal with SE phones ( 3 different phones and 2 different models… all would freeze if you touched a button right as you opened the phone ), and, while I can’t speak for all their phones I wouldn’t recommend an SE phone to anyone (Also they have a dubious history of weird copy protection schemes, not so helpful support, and lot’s of other issues). Nokia could perhaps do something interesting (they’ve had MP3 capable phones for a long time as well). Samsung, LG… etc could do something as well, but they seem to jump around on OS’s which would make consistent integration problematic. That BTW is exactly what Apple has that blows away the competition… consistent integration of music player (phone) and computer (and now other devices). One would wonder why Sony hasn’t done this, but it seems integration is not one of their strong points (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38938).
Yeah, most people get a new cellphone every year (not a $600 phone though).
Alot of people drop cellphones and toss them around, so mistakes happen.
Hmmm, from what I’ve read, Apple has sold 100 million iPods since its introduction in Nov of 2001. If you’re saying Sony has sold 17 million Walkman phones last year…then I’m no mathemagician, but if we assume the same rate, Apple’s still a bit ahead. Aren’t they?
Tomi Ahonen has been banging on about this for years now, his posts do make an interesting read: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2006/03/nails_into_the_.html
He feels that the iPod will dissapear very shortly and be an item only used by Apple fans and hardcore music junkies. He thinks that the market share the iPod has now will be similar to that of the Apple computer (5% of MP3 player market)
A major difference could be third party software. I’ve just started using my iPod less and my Nokia phone more because of The Filter which is an app for PC and Nokia that can fill my phone and also allows me to browse my phone my phone in an innovative fashion ( TheFilter.com )