Apple, Element Gain MP3 Shelf Share: IFR

By Joseph Palenchar On Dec 7 2009 - 8:00am

Apple- and Element-branded MP3 players and portable media players (PMPs) gained shelf share at the expense of many major competing brands during the first nine months of 2009, IFR Monitoring found.

Apple's share of MP3/PMP devices displayed at retail stores soared to 30.9 percent from the year-ago 22.4 percent, while Element went from 0 to 7.2 percent during the period, IFR found. At the same time, Apple accounted for 73 percent of all MP3/PMP players sold at retail to U.S. consumers through August, a separate report by The NPD Group found.

Many top brands lost shelf share during the nine-month period, including SanDisk, Microsoft (before the launch of the new Zune HD), Best Buy's Insignia brand, Creative Labs and Samsung. Other brands posted negligible gains.

IFR Monitoring's Shelf Tracking Service monitors the price, promotion and placement of products in the stores of more than 30 retailers in key U.S. cities. IFR surveys a representative sample of stores, projecting them to represent nationwide shelf share.

Among brands losing shelf share, SanDisk share went from 18.6 percent, to 12.1 percent, while Microsoft's share fell from 10.1 percent, to 6.4 percent. Sony share slipped from 7.1 percent, to 6.2 percent; Creative Labs went from 6.9 percent, to 2.8 percent, and Samsung went from 5.8 percent, to 3 percent. Archos share slipped from 1 percent, to 0.1 percent.

Brands gaining shelf share included Philips, whose share went from 4.5 percent, to 5.3 percent.

In terms of storage capacity, models with 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB were the models displayed most often during the nine-month period, IFR found. A total of 25.4 percent of displayed models sported 2GB of memory, and 22.5 percent had 4GB. A total of 20.4 percent had 8GB of memory, and 7.7 percent had 16GB.

The specific model with the most shelf share was the 8GB iPod Nano, which accounted for 4.3 percent of all MP3/PMP devices displayed. Other models in the top 10 by shelf share were the 8GB iPod Touch and 120GB iPod Classic, each with 4.2 percent share, followed in order by the 1GB iPod Shuffle Clip with 3.6 percent, the 16GB iPod Nano with 3.3 percent, the 32GB iPod Touch at 2.9 percent, the 16GB Touch at 2.8 percent, the 4GB Sansa Fuze at 2.7 percent, the 2GB Sansa Clip at 2.6 percent, and the 8GB Microsoft Zune at 2.5 percent.

Top 25 MP3/PMP Brands By Shelf Share
(Jan-sept 2009)*