Canalys: Portable Music Player Market Expected to Double By End of Year

Courtesy of Tekrati, comes a report issued by Canalys on the portable music player market. Key highlights of the report, none of them surprising, include:

• 25.6 million dedicated portable music players were sold worldwide in H1 2005
• Apple is the overall leader, followed by Creative and Rio
• Mobile phone vendors should focus on low-to-medium capacity flash-based models for music
• Interfaces on music-capable phones will need to improve for wider market adoption

In conjuction with the Apple/Motorola Rokr launch, the report discusses the challenges faced by the mobile industry for music phones and services. Canalys analyst Rachel Lashford said:

A mobile phone-based player doesn’t offer much to a high-volume music consumer. The convenience of having to carry one device less will usually be outweighed by the design compromises that result. And a heavy user is not going to pay a premium to download each track over the air to a phone when there are cheaper service alternatives that offer a more sophisticated browsing experience, interface and file management. The brand and image that Apple has built with the iPod would be difficult enough to challenge on its own, but would-be competitors will have to compete on accessories and usability as well, and they have to factor in the operators’ attitudes to content provision, charging and consumption.

She added:

One of the benefits of 3G is that full track over-the-air music download becomes feasible. But what we have now is a growing array of 2G music-centric phones diluting the operators’ 3G multimedia proposition. When upgrades like HSDPA come along bringing faster download speeds consumers are even more likely to become confused about what they can and cannot do with any given phone. Some operators will try to hide the different technologies from the customer, which is a laudable aim, but it doesn’t solve the problem of fragmentation in a market where the customer’s choice is often driven by the desire for a particular handset rather than understanding and evaluation of an overall service offering.