sonycowboy
Member
How important is the multifunctionality to the success of the PSP?
In the past 12 months, the iPod has experience sales growth that is incredible and has cemented iself as THE portable music player. Has Sony missed the boat? Is the PSP coming too late to cause much of a stir with it's MP3 capability, or is it minimally important to the PSP's sucess?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=ayuJ_AtnPApo&refer=japan
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=10252&Page=1&pagePos=1
In the past 12 months, the iPod has experience sales growth that is incredible and has cemented iself as THE portable music player. Has Sony missed the boat? Is the PSP coming too late to cause much of a stir with it's MP3 capability, or is it minimally important to the PSP's sucess?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=ayuJ_AtnPApo&refer=japan
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=10252&Page=1&pagePos=1
Apple Deepens Sony's Woes as `Cute' iPod Takes Off in Japan
Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Juliana Sasaki didn't bother checking out Sony Corp.'s digital music player in Tokyo before buying her green iPod mini.
``I knew Sony and other companies had MP3 players, but they can't beat the mini,'' says Sasaki, 23, a language teacher. ``I went straight to the Apple store. The mini is so cute.''
In Japan, home to four of the five top electronics companies by sales, advance orders made Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod mini the top-selling portable player three weeks before its July 24 release. It still is.
Tokyo-based Sony Corp.'s embarrassment at Apple's hands is another setback for the company that in 1979 invented the world's first portable music player, the Walkman. Sony's profit from consumer electronics has fallen in five of the past six years as Sharp Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. grabbed the digital initiative with flat-screen televisions and DVD players.
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Sony Chief Financial Officer Katsumi Ihara lamented Apple's jump on the company in a September interview.
``Our personal audio business isn't performing to our expectations -- partly because of iPod, which has become a fashion,'' Ihara said. ``We must avoid having Apple take over our image in the personal audio category. We must fight back.''
EXCLUSIVE: 'iPod sales hit 23.5 million by 2006' - analyst
By Jonny Evans
A leading Wall Street analyst expects 100 million Windows users to own iPods by 2008.
In a 27-page note released to clients, Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf revealed that, when such critical mass is achieved, "Mac sales could surge if only a nominal fraction of this group make a purchase."
While Apple has remained tight-lipped concerning claims that it intends releasing a flash-based iPod, Wolf says: "Although we expect hard drive players to capture an increasing share of the portable music player market, flash players should dominate the market through 2006."
...
Conservative assessments
Wolf's analysis and raised target price are not dependent on an iPod halo effect, nor on Apple maintaining an 80 per cent share in the hard drive-based music player market and 70 per cent of the music download market. Nor does it depend on any future iPod flash product release.
Wolf also describes Apple's online and brick-&-mortar retail stores as "the unsung heroes of the Apple story".
In fact, Wolf's account relies on the assumption that a truly competitive product will debut on the market, and that Apple's share will slide to 60 per cent. He predicts that Apple will be able to compete with that future challenge on price, because it will be able to benefit from economies of scale, attracting lower production costs than competitors can access, due to iPod's massive sales volume.
PC installation on the rise
Wolf estimates that the installed base of personal computers could reach 1.3 billion by 2010. And he believes that, since a PC is required to use an iPod or other music player, such continued consumer take-up will propel sales.
"Our analysis indicates that the installed base of portable music players could approach 500 million by 2010, equivalent to a 7 per cent penetration rate of the worlds population."
The Microsoft choice 'ignores reality'
Microsoft argues that consumers want choice in their online music purchases, and will eventually favour non-Apple devices. Wolf declares that the Redmond company's assessment, "ignores reality".
Wolf does not believe music lovers care about music formats when they buy songs, and that most songs are ripped from CDs or downloaded elsewhere. He argues that consumers don't care which online service they use, as long as it has what they want and is compatible with their device, and adds that content will not drive a single standard service to emerge, as music content will be identically-available on multiple services.
"There are no compelling economic reasons why Microsofts Windows Media Audio music software platform should end up dominating this market just because its been adopted by a host of online music stores and music players", he writes.
"In our opinion, the only way Windows Media could emerge as the dominant platform is if Apple stops innovating its iTunes software and the iPod," he states.
Simply the best
"Were forecasting iPod sales of 23.5 million units in 2006," Wolf adds.