Support Our Site
Get Better Gear!
- Notability For iPad: Much More Than A Note Taking App from Ginger Labs, Inc, US$0.99
- Scosche’s RH656m Headphones With Microphone Are Wonderful from Scosche, US$129.99
- IPEVO’s Typi Folio Case & Keyboard for iPad is First-rate from IPEVO, US$79.99
- Scosche’s boomSTREAM BT Speaker: Features & Compromises from Scosche, US$99.95
- FX Photo Studio HD: iPad Painting of Effects Made Easy from MacPhun LLC, US1.99
Premier Sponsors
Top 5 Free Apps
iTunes New Music Releases
Top 5 Paid Apps
Discover New Music
- Red Hot Chili Peppers
- The Redwalls
- Wow! Perhaps my 5-star rating is simply because the Redwalls are not only new and fresh (none of them older than 22!), or perhaps its because -- despite their ages -- they are able to totally capture
- Massive Attack
"Black Milk" knocks me off my feet in this collection of moody and eclectic songs. Massive Attack uses samples and keyboards in a very unique way, but not all the songs pack the same punch.
- Nine Inch Nails
In the sprawling post-A&R rock and roll world, there are two camps: the Beatles and the Stones. The Beatles are the artists that like to explore, evolve, and change styles. The Stones are the artis
Live at the Magic Bag, Ferndale, MI
- Supersuckers
- Man, there's nothing like good, old fashioned, rock and roll... add a bit of industry resentment to that with a double-shot of cynicism, and you get one of the best "new" rock bands going. This album
Reader Specials
Visit Deals On The Web for the best deals on all consumer electronics, iPods, and more!
News
‘Exploding’ MP3 Player Market Hit $4.5 Billion in 2004
Monday, June 20th, 2005 at 3:00 PM - by Brad Cook
Market research firm In-Stat has released its latest report, "Portable Digital Audio Players: Moving to the Beat of a Booming Market," which shows that the worldwide MP3 player market -- including both hard drive-based and flash-based devices -- reached US$4.5 billion in sales in 2004. Analyst Stephanie Guza said the situation is "exploding," with an almost 200% increase in sales over 2003 and a projection of 104 million units sold annually by 2009. 27.8 million MP3 players were sold in 2004.
Ms. Guza reported that Apple leads the worldwide market with a 30.2% share; Rio, iRiver and Creative make up the company's major competition. She also said that flash-based MP3 players with 1GB or more storage will reach just over 20% of that worldwide market subset by the end of 2005. Domestically, Ms. Guza noted that a 2005 consumer survey showed that 25% of U.S. respondents said they own an MP3 player, up from 16% in 2001.
"As competition heats up, vendors are striving to differentiate products by offering a wide range of price points, memory capacities, and features," Ms. Guza said in a statement. "As a result, we are seeing increased segmentation. For example, the hard disk drive (HDD) digital audio player segment can be sub-divided into two categories: the 1-inch or smaller segment and the 1.8-inch segment."
Recent Headlines
- Reading, Writing, & Saving the World
- Free Retro Gaming for iOS - Activision’s Kaboom!
- Apple Adds Chomp Bits to iOS 6 App Store Discovery
- Notability For iPad: Much More Than A Note Taking App
- Scosche’s RH656m Headphones With Microphone Are Wonderful
- Tim Cook & Larry Page Reportedly Discuss Patents
- Analysis: Amazon Kindle Fire Sold Out, Kindle Fire 2 Pic Leaked
Post Your Comments