Music Phones Tackle the iPod

BusinessWeek has yet another article about mobile phones vs iPods, but this one is fairly balanced…”Should Apple be worried (about people who prefer a converged device)…? Maybe.”
At the moment Apple is in the lead — at least in Britain: “In Britain about 8% of all adults listen to music stored on their phones, vs. 17% who listen to music on an iPod or other dedicated music player, according to market researcher Gartner Group.”
However, the article goes on to say that Ovum has predicted 27% of mobile phones sold globally will be able to store and play music, increasing to 69% by 2010.
And while iPods still hold more songs and have a longer battery life mobile phones are improving. But then, so are iPods. The main problem for Apple is the “good enough” crowd, those who don’t particularly want to carry around 4,000 songs and think 100 is plenty, so it doesn’t matter how good iPods get. I reckon Apple is aware of this and making plans.
“There will still be a market for MP3 players just as there is still a market for digital cameras,” says Steve Walker, vice-president for product marketing at Sony Ericsson in London. “But there is a segment of the market that sees one device with two functions as an advantage.”

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