Pioneer Electronics' Inno XM2Go portable receiver is seen in this undated handout picture. - REUTERS
LAS VEGAS (Reuters):
GADGET INDUSTRY giants came out swinging last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, unveiling sleek designs and tiny portable digital music players in hopes of ending the dominance of Apple Computer Incorporated.
From Samsung to Sony to Sandisk, everyone wants a piece of Apple's pie in the portable digital music player market, where the iPod reigns.
Sandisk Corporation expects to make it a 'two-horse race' in the chip-based memory segment of the market, led by the iPod Nano, and XM Satellite Radio Inc. ran magazine advertisements for its Samsung Electronics-designed MP3 player that said: "It's not a Pod, it's the Mothership."
Tough talk, for sure. But in launching salvos, most acknowledged the marketing might of Apple in the US$4.5-billion arena.
GUARDING OUR FUTURE
"We have been playing in the basement, guarding our future," by failing to match Apple's marketing spend, said Peter Weedfald, a senior vice-president at South Korea's Samsung Electronics Company Limited, which introduced new MP3 players boasting long battery life. "For 2006 (however) you are going to feel a launch; you are going to see and hear our products."
Like its peers, Samsung has kept a low profile in the MP3 market, spending a relative pittance on marketing MP3 devices in North America versus an iPod budget of more than $100 million. Apple has keenly turned the relatively simple gadgets computer memory married with music-playing software into status items and fashion accessories.
None are bold enough to say they can best the iPod, but Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff says that even incremental market share gains can bear fruit.
"Apple has a 75 per cent market share. That means a quarter of the market is up for grabs," he told Reuters at the show.
Apple does not attend CES, the largest U.S. electronics show, where its rivals are offering alternatives that they say are bigger, better and less expensive than an iPod.
Taken from The Sunday Gleaner, January 8, 2006
