Gadget industry giants came out swinging this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, unveiling sleek designs and tiny portable digital music players in hopes of ending the dominance of Apple Computer Inc.’s iPods.
From Samsung to Sony to Sandisk, everyone wants a piece of Apple’s pie in the portable digital music player market, where the iPod reigns.
Sandisk Corp. expects to make it a “two-horse race” in the chip-based memory segment of the market, led by the iPod Nano, and XM Satellite Radio Inc. ran magazine advertisements for its Samsung Electronics-designed MP3 player that said: “It’s not a Pod, It’s the Mothership.”
Tough talk, for sure. But in launching salvos, most acknowledged the marketing might of Apple in the $4.5 billion arena.
“We have been playing in the basement, guarding our future,” by failing to match Apple’s marketing spend, said Peter Weedfald, a senior vice president at South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which introduced new MP3 players boasting long battery life. “For 2006 (however) you are going to feel a launch; you are going to see and hear our products.”
Like its peers, Samsung has kept a low profile in the MP3 market, spending a relative pittance on marketing MP3 devices in North America versus an iPod budget of more than $100 million. Apple has keenly turned the relatively simple gadgets — computer memory married with music-playing software — into status items and fashion accessories.
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