Sony Beating The iPod... In Japan... Sort Of

from the close-only-counts-in-horseshoes-and-hand-grenades dept

A report out of Japan says momentum is shifting towards Sony in Japan's MP3 player market. But reading a little closer shows that Sony's flash memory models are the ones selling well, while hard drive models continue to falter against iPods. Sony's share of flash-based players jumped from 4 percent in March to 27 percent in May and June, while the iPod shuffle took less than 20 percent of the market, mainly on the back of a player with a 50-hour battery life. Analysts point to the lack of an iTunes Music Store for Japan as a key differentiator for Sony, but the unmitigated failure of Sony's Connect store in the US and Europe makes that a little hard to believe. In any case, Apple's expected to open iTunes Japan next month, and Apple's results, released yesterday, still show strong iPod sales growth.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    dorpus, 14 Jul 2005 @ 10:39am

    The Fad of No Fads

    Whatever their fashion is, Japanese will passionately embrace it, then discard it the next year. A couple of years ago, everybody and their newborn babies had to have bleached hair, now nobody does. Techno music, "body conscious" fashions, whatever it is, people will believe in it fanatically for a few months, then erase it from their memory.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    8dee, 14 Jul 2005 @ 7:47pm

    I believe that they are here to stay

    As long as sony keep on comming with new models and stay up with trend, they will be able to build their name up the mp3 line

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.