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San Antonio — The Progressive Retailers Organization was at the Westin La Cantera Hill Coun
MP3 and portable media player (PMP) suppliers at next month's International CES will launch new products designed to encourage replacement sales in a mature marketplace, suppliers and analysts said.
Replacement sales do not yet account for a majority of unit sales but are on the rise because of average two-year ownership periods, they added.
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Cellphone suppliers Sony Ericsson and Motorola turned out at International CES with new music-focused cellphones, one of which was described by Motorola mobile devices president Stu Reed as "dispelling the myth that mobile phones with music features are inferior to stand-alone audio devices."
Cellphone suppliers Sony Ericsson and Motorola turned out at International CES with new music-focused cellphones, one of which was described by Motorola mobile devices president Stu Reed as "dispelling the myth that mobile phones with music features are inferior to stand-alone audio devices."
The market's first MP3 player with integrated wireless-headphone technology will be available in October from RCA, and wireless accessories due in coming months from other brands will use the same wireless technology.
SanDisk entered multiple new markets at International CES with its first Wi-Fi-equipped MP3 player; its first portable media player (PMP); and the industry's first so-called USBTV device, which docks with any TV to play back video transferred from a PC. All use flash memory.
TWICE: What will drive demand for, or use of, video playback on MP3 players and PMPs?
Andy Mintz, Philips: We anticipate that video players will continue to be embraced for years to come. Accessibility to content continues to drive demand for many products, and this is true for MP3 video players and PMPs as well.
The flash you see during the Christmas season won't be the star of Bethlehem but the star of the portable audio industry: MP3 players, flash-memory models in particular.
Flash-memory models are gaining share on HDD models, thanks to the introduction this year of multiple 1GB, 2GB and 4GB models, particularly the first iPod flash models in those capacities with color screen and click wheel, marketers said.
The MP3 player market is maturing and facing competition from MP3-equipped cellphones.
Although retail-level unit sales of MP3 players and sibling portable media players (PMPs) grew 14.9 percent for the 10-month period ending October 2007, that was down from 26.4 percent during the year-ago period, The NPD Group statistics show. Dollar sales fell during the 10-month period in 2007 by 1.7 percent compared with 19.7 percent growth in the year-ago period, NPD also found.
Sony added active noise cancellation for the first time to a portable audio product with the launch of a pair of flash-memory MP3 players, which will be available in November only through the company's Sony Style stores and sonystyle.com site.
Sales of MP3 players might have risen at double-digit percentage rates this year, but suppliers are already thinking about market maturity and the potential impact of MP3-playing cellphones as they prepare for International CES.
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