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Digital play-as-you-go keeps growing |
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Tuesday, 05 July 2005 |
Digital
play-as-you-go keeps growing
Reuters -
USA
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Several recent market studies by industry analysts
suggest the demand for portable digital music players is poised to skyrocket
this year, reaching the critical mass needed for online music services to
thrive.
A recent report from analyst group In-Stat forecasts that the market for
hard-drive devices and flash-based devices will reach more than 104 million
units worldwide by 2009, compared with the 27.8 million on record for 2004. It
also notes that MP3 player sales reached $4.5 billion worldwide last year, an
increase of 200% over 2003.
The U.S. market is contributing heavily to these expectations. In the States
alone, 25% of the respondents to In-Stat's 2005 consumer survey acknowledged
owning an MP3 player, up from 16% in 2001. Jupiter Research, in an April 2005
report, found that U.S. shipments of MP3 players more than tripled in 2004, and
expects that figure to increase again by 35% in 2005.
Jupiter predicts the U.S. MP3 market to achieve a compound annual growth rate of
more than 10% through 2010, reaching an installed base of 56 million, from 16.2
million in 2004.
Apple Computer's iPod energized the MP3 player market with large-capacity,
hard-drive-based models. But lower-cost flash-based devices are seen as the
future category leader driving growth. Jupiter expects shipments of flash-based
devices to exceed that of hard-drive models starting in 2007.
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