With a slew of new digital music players to hit local shelves in the next two months, vendors said they were expecting a fresh round of price wars ahead of the Christmas shopping spree.
"Prices of MP3 players will probably go down in December after vendors introduce their new products in October and November," said David Li (
With the competitively priced new iPod series from Apple Computer Inc to hit the local market next month, first-tier brands are gearing up to compete, he said.
Samsung will join its rivals Sony Corp, SanDisk Corp and Apple in launching music players next month in Taiwan.
One of Samsung's new models will be similar to the iPod nano, but will also include video capabilities, while another features a set of compact speakers that slide out from the back of the device, Li said.
"We will need to see what impact the new iPod series has before finalizing our pricing strategy," Li said.
Apple yesterday announced a local price guide for its new iPod series. The new video-enabled iPods will have 2.5-inch screens that are 60 percent brighter than previous models.
The latest iPods will come with a storage capacity of 30GB, priced at NT$8,800 (US$268), or 80GB, at NT$12,400.
The batteries on the 80GB model will make video viewing of up to 6.5 hours possible.
Meanwhile, iPod nanos will be available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB varieties, priced at NT$5,400, NT$7,000 and NT$8,800, respectively. A new iPod shuffle with 1GB of memory will sell for NT$2,900.
Apple said it has sold more than 60 million players since releasing its first iPod in October 2001, 1 million of which were iPod shuffles.
Research firm iSuppli Corp said last Wednesday that the latest iPod nanos featured a new design that delivers increased functionality at reduced cost compared with the previous generation.
However, the latest iPods fall short of being true video-centric players, which are in demand among consumers who want to watch movies, not just video clips, the research firm said.
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