SanDisk Corp, the world's largest maker of flash storage cards for electronic devices, yesterday introduced local consumers to its latest MP3 players, a multi-functional gadget that is set to chip away at sales of Apple Computer Inc's iPod series.
"We hope to achieve 20 percent to 30 percent of the MP3 player market share in Taiwan within the next 18 to 24 months," Gavin Wu (吳家榮), managing director of SanDisk in the Asia-Pacific region, said on the sideline of the press conference to launch the products yesterday.
SanDisk launched the Sansa e200 players in North America three months ago, and the device was considered a formidable opponent to the iPod nano.
With more functions and storage, a bigger screen, longer battery life, and a lower price, the Sansa e200 was dubbed by some tech reviewers and gadget aficionados as a "nano killer."
The Sansa e200 series flash-based MP3 players, with capacity of 2 gigabyte (GB), 4GB and 6GB, are capable of playing music and video clips and showing photos. The player also provides a microSD card slot for content portability and additional capacity.
With an appearance similar to Apple's iPod nano, the Sansa e200 features a 1.8-inch thin-film transistor color screen, a voice recorder, digital FM tuner, on-the-fly FM recording, removable battery, and 20-hour battery life.
SanDisk priced its Sansa e200 2GB model at NT$6,490 (US$200), and its 4G model at NT$8,490, compared with iPod nano's 2GB model at NT$6,900, and 4GB at NT$8,600. Sansa's 6G model is sold at NT$10,690.
One commonly cited defect of the iPod nano is its susceptibility to scratches with some iPod nano owners going so far as to have filed a class action suit against Apple. The Sansa e200, however, comes with a scratch-proof liquidmetal back casing, a direct challenge to the iPod nano.
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But SanDisk has no plans to overtake Apple at the moment and remains modest about its chances against the iPod.
"Our goal is to become the world's second largest MP3 player vendor after Apple," Wu said. "And we have already accomplished the target in the US market."
The Sunnyvale-based MP3 player upstart, entered the MP3 player market in November 2004 but secured the No. 2 spot in a short period of time.
According to a research report issued by market researcher NPD Group, for the first 11 months of last year, Apple had a commanding 68.3 percent of market share of digital music players, followed, a distant second, by SanDisk's 7.8 percent.
Apple may soon launch a counterattack by introducing 8GB or 10GB iPod nanos before the holiday shopping season, market watchers said. The company is also said to be unveiling a touch-screen video iPod, which the company has not confirmed.
The increased demand for portable media devices is likely to lead to a shortage of NAND flash-memory chips in the fourth quarter of this year, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing Gartner Inc's latest report. A new high-end iPod from Apple would make that even more severe, Gartner said.
Memory makers such as Samsung Electronics Co, Toshiba Corp and SanDisk may respond by shifting manufacturing capacity or increasing component prices. That would reduce profit margins on the iPod and other digital music players, according to Gartner.
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