Sony Slashes into Apple's Japanese iPod Market Share

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While Apple's iPod dominates the North American and European markets, recent reports show that Sony has made cuts into Apple's music player dominance in Japan. The gains come partially in thanks to a new line of products as well as the absence of iTunes in that nation. While Apple still holds the top spot when it comes to hard-disk based devices such as the standard iPod and iPod Mini, Sony has pushed Apple's iPod Shuffle out of first place in the flash memory player market.

After significant product launches in March and April, which included 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB players as well as two hard-disk players, Sony's major gains came from the aforementioned compact models which offered superior battery life over the iPod Shuffle. While Sony's players are more expensive, consumers appear willing to pay extra for the reported 50 hour battery life from a single charge, as well as an LCD screen displaying track information.

According to market research firm BCN, Sony's flash based player market share resided at 16 percent before the product launch and proceeded to shoot up to 27 percent by May. Apple's share fell under 20 percent during that timeframe.

News source: Reuters UK

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(4 replies) #1 finalcoolman on 14 Jul 2005 - 19:51

Cool. Apple should have never made the Shuffles, they should have kept the iPods as premium hard disc players only. Cause in terms of flash players, the NW-E507 makes the iPod Shuffle look like crap. True it is more expensive but you get a cool OLED display and an FM tuner. And no, I'm not an Apple hater, I love Apple as I use Macs alongside PCs. However the Shuffles just don't cut it.

However they need to work on the software like the article said. If you could use the Sony players with iTunes, that would be the ultimate. Oh well.

Edit: Since many people have never heard or seen of this Sony player here is a review: http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=1496

Last edited by 20702 on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:13

#1.1 betasp on 14 Jul 2005 - 19:59

I agree. I suspect the margins are alot tighter on the shuffle and they distort Apple's market. I wish there were no comparisons to the shuffle. To me it is a bast tard (censor avoid) product that was released because of pressure from investors to offer a lower price point product and not because it was at all innovative (or too useful). If I were Apple, I would not get too concerned over losing market share on the low end. I would keep a close eye on the hard drive based line and b prepared to react is market share starts slipping.

#1.2 kitchenutensils on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:13

gd point but i doubt the sony players make nearly as much money as apple have made from shuffles!

#1.3 krono6 on 14 Jul 2005 - 23:34

No wonder the iPod Shuffle is losing.... Took this long for the public to realise, "Hey, it has no screen!"

That's pleasing to know.. Suprised it's so damn expensive too >_>

#1.4 eAi on 15 Jul 2005 - 09:39

It is important to rememeber that apple have a 75%+ market share and the nearest competitor has less than 5%...

(1 reply) #2 mad_onion on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:08

well competition is always good, but this is only the shuffle which is less than good imo. to beat the ipod now that it has got itself settled in is going to almost impossible

#2.1 sphbecker on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:24

There are already a number of hard-drive players out there comparable to the iPod. I know a few users who have switched from an iPod to something else (normally because of battery problems) and like the new player more. Highest market share doesn't always indicate that something is the best. Look at Windows, it has a much higher market share then the iPod, yet many people choose something else.

(2 replies) #3 Nitrate on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:15

50 hours battery life? I would love that.

#3.1 AJCrowley Esq on 14 Jul 2005 - 21:31

It's worth noting that (according to Sony's sales), the 50 hour life is only by using their own ATRAC format, using mp3 reduces the battery life significantly. Also, you must use their god awful SoundStage software to rip or put your music on the player. There is a flash to allow you to see it as a virtual drive and just drag and drop in explorer, but as of yet, this is only available by sending your player off to Sony, they won't provide the firmware to the end user.

All of this is a piss off, but it's still one of the best players in the market IMO. Apple is highly overrated, and sells on style rather than quality or function, and it's drastically less stylish IMO than many of the competitors such as Sony and iRiver.

#3.2 finalcoolman on 14 Jul 2005 - 22:12

Ya but apparantly you only lose about 10 hours of battery life with MP3 encoding. 35-40 hours playback with MP3 files still beats the crap out of the iPod Shuffle's measly 12 hour battery life any day of the week. The fact that Sony's device has a screen and gets about quadruple the playback time of the screenless Shuffle really shows how much more advanced the technology is that Sony's implementing here compared to Apple.

Last edited by 20702 on 14 Jul 2005 - 22:22

#4 noize on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:32

if apple doesn't solve the battery problem qkly, i'm gonna switch too.
15 vs 50, that's just too much.

and ipod needs a new design. kinda tired of the same old white box.

Last edited by 11330 on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:45

#5 Rolando on 14 Jul 2005 - 20:42

finally some descent competition... this ought to push Apple into increasing the battery life of the iPod

(1 reply) #6 cashman on 14 Jul 2005 - 22:05

I have to admit, I am a huge fan of Sony's recent inroads into the mp3 player market, and the flash players are the sexiest ones out there in my opinion.

#6.1 VikingStorm on 14 Jul 2005 - 23:47

Was trying to figure out where the screen was... and there it was

#7 TheSarge on 14 Jul 2005 - 23:21

I never thought I'd be roting for Sony... but Apple's iPod is about as inovateive as a white toaster.
So I'm rooting for Sony.

(2 replies) #8 trravez on 14 Jul 2005 - 23:45

Sony's VAIO pocket player is way more innovative than any of the apple ipods out there. Much more compatible too supporting mp3 and ogg. Even an easy drag and drop application that will easily convert WMA's is included. Battery life is excellent, color screen is smart, could scroll a little quicker considering the 40gb size. But warning: In order to get album covers displayed, make sure the picture is embedded in the mp3 or you might have to manually attach them. Plus the date/clock display when charging has completely erased the need for Windows' bottom-right clock display. Yeah, I'm for sony.

#8.1 MegaManXcalibur on 15 Jul 2005 - 04:41

Actually I have a pocket VAIO and love the things. But there are a few things that are inaccurate in your post...

QUOTE

Sony's VAIO pocket player is way more innovative than any of the apple ipods out there. Much more compatible too supporting mp3 and ogg.

The Pocket VAIO will not play .ogg files at all and you do need the latest firmware update in order to play .mp3 files nativly (otherwise they are coverted to ATRAC format).

But warning: In order to get album covers displayed, make sure the picture is embedded in the mp3 or you might have to manually attach them.

One trick here is to place the picture in the albums folder and rename the picture "Folder.jpg" and SonicStage (the included software for those of you who don't have any Sony music players) will pick them up automatically for you.

But I do agree that the VAIO pocket was way more innovative then the iPod. It has a color screen, the ability to display and search by ablum covers, and even the ability to plug a camera into it and offload the files onto the hard drive (although you need to plug the camera into the dock since the device itself lacks a standard USB connector), and a battery life you could actually live with (I can go an entire week on one charge where as I always had to recharge my iPod once ever two days).

But the cost is quite high (I thought it was worth it myself but most people don't agree) which turned many people off. But it is one rock solid device (unlike my iPod which had a really nice polished metal back which scratched if you looked at it wrong) and can take quite a beating compared to most mp3 players..

#8.2 trravez on 19 Jul 2005 - 07:31

So if I uploaded my CDs via WMP10 in .mp3 and then had SonicStage search my music folders, will all the hidden folder.jpg pictures be included? It did not do this the first time I converted my entire collection and I had to manually add them one by one. Ugh, updates after the fact...

(3 replies) #9 vacantmind on 15 Jul 2005 - 02:52

" Part of the problem was that Sony refused to enable its devices to playback MP3 files, forcing everyone to have to convert any MP3 content to ATRAC."

This is why I'd NEVER get one. No way in hell i'm going to convert all of my mp3s to that format. It looked beatiful... until that little bit. Sony = suck. I was really thinking of getting one of these until I read that part.

I just recently ogt a zen micro anyway.. so I'm happy with that.

#9.1 sfs88 on 15 Jul 2005 - 03:08

"Recently Sony has addressed the biggest bugbear, and enabled its players to playback MP3 files natively. " - the "problem" you mention doesn't exist anymore

#9.2 vacantmind on 15 Jul 2005 - 03:47

Yea I didn't read that until after. Still though their software sucks (so i've heard). And you lose quality and hours of play time with MP3.

#9.3 MegaManXcalibur on 15 Jul 2005 - 04:43

Actually the new verson of their software (version 3.1) is very good. They finally have an included mp3 encoder and fixed the proformance issues (3.0 was terribly slow). I'm not sure about Sony's flash player but my pocket VAIO has no quality issues while playing mp3s and almost no reduction of battery life either.

#10 Ravensworth on 15 Jul 2005 - 07:01

I don't know; those Sony players look like cigarette lighters.

#11 dynamic_mode on 15 Jul 2005 - 07:46

Am I correct but thes Sony's NW-E507 series have only USB 1.1 port??
And the weak OLED display when you use it outside.

#12 iomayho on 15 Jul 2005 - 08:38

here in taiwan, the ipod shuffle is really a huge success, you can see tons of people having it hanging on there neck just going out to the streets. I have one myself and i really love it, its sooo.. small and light, and it does waht i need it to do, play music.
the sony one however looks pretty cool too...^^

#13 shao on 15 Jul 2005 - 12:01

oh god, when will people stop buying sony's crap?! get back to me a couple of days when your warranty runs out, and the device mysteriously dies, along with everyone elses'

#14 lbmouse on 15 Jul 2005 - 12:09

Microsoft will enter the market in 2009 when they make the revelation that personal media devices are not a fad.

(1 reply) #15 Amnesia on 15 Jul 2005 - 13:52

i hate sony fans

they get blinded whenever a sony product comes out.

Most magazines rated this player with a 3 out of 5.

I owned one of these just for interest.

Too plasticky

#15.1 finalcoolman on 16 Jul 2005 - 23:34

Right. And I hate blind, ignorant Apple fanboys too, which you most likey are. I hate fanboys of anything whether it be Microsoft, Linux, Apple, Sony whatever. They all make good products in certian areas. All fanboys don't have a life. Truth of the matter is I like all of these companies/technologies among others equally. However when one makes a better product I will pick that one. In my opinion Apple makes nicer laptops then Sony's current offering so I'm buying an iBook once they are updated. This however was not true along time ago and it might not be true in the future. In this case Sony clearly wins against the shuffle.

P.S. The Shuffle is the most plasticy, cheap feeling thing that you can ever buy, clearly using a much cheaper grade of plastic that the real iPods. Shuffle buyers are normally just cheapskates who buy them only so they can be like others and have white iPod earbuds dangeling out of their ears so people think they have money because they are sort of a status symbol/accessory.

#16 unbalance on 17 Jul 2005 - 05:59

hmm... ya i like sony too, we always bought from sony and panasonic, but then my Sony MD player started bugging up, so i sent it in, got a new one, sent taht in, got a Creative MuVo player, sent taht in, got another one, and this one's screen is not in correctly.... something tells me i have bad luck with electronics. Personally i think iPods are over rated... no offence to Apple, I like the iMacs (specially the iMac G5) but i dunno, i mean the iPods are sorta too big for me, and the shuffle is just like my Creative Player with less battery life (by 3 hours) and no screen. Id definately go for the Sony player.

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