Lauren, 11, saunters nonchalantly past a Discovery Channel store and a Gymboree clothing store at the mall. Then suddenly, the girl's eyes light up and she pulls her mother into an Apple Computer Inc retail shop.
Together, they ogle the colorful selection of iPod Mini audio players. "I want this one," Lauren says excitedly, pointing to a green one. Her older sister, 14, already has a blue one.
PHOTO: AFP
The pair walk out empty-handed but later the girl's mother, Mary Lynn Robinson of Menlo Park, hints, "Well, Christmas is coming."
Indeed it is, and at least a dozen other music players are angling to steal sales away from Apple's wildly popular iPod line.
In the past month, five companies have unveiled their latest iPod challengers -- portable music players with hard disks that can store anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 songs.
There's Dell Inc's new Pocket DJ, Virgin Electronics' Player, Creative Labs Inc's Zen Micro, iRiver America Inc's H300, and Archos Inc's Gmini XS200.
"Everyone is trying to get a bite out of Apple's piece of the pie," said Susan Kevorkian, analyst at market research firm IDC.
But Apple always has more tricks up its sleeves.
On Tuesday the company introduced a new larger-capacity iPod with a color display as well as a first-of-its-kind digital compendium of the rock band U2's songs.
Apple's latest effort to maintain supremacy in the portable audio player market and the online music business also includes a new special edition U2 iPod.
Analysts expect the Apple-U2 partnerships to be the first of many to come between artists and music product providers.
The digital album set featuring 400-plus U2 recordings will be available for US$149 at the iTunes online music store next month.
Apple was not the first to introduce a high-capacity hard-disk portable music player -- Archos was. But Apple's October 2001 launch of the sleek, white iPod defined the market.
Today, Apple rules the field, riding high with a gizmo that's both fashion chic and a cultural icon.
The company sold a record 2 million units in its last quarter ending in September and has a lifetime total of more than 5.7 million. Brisk back-to-school sales pushed Apple's share of the hard-disk player market in the US to 92 percent in August, up from 82 percent the year before, according to NPD Group.
Worldwide, Apple enjoyed a 54 percent chunk of hard-disk unit shipments last year, maintaining a strong lead in a market predicted to grow to 25.5 million units in 2008, up from 2.7 million units shipped last year, according to IDC.
Analysts say Apple could continue to dominate but expect that its market share will erode amid the slew of new arrivals that are matching the iPod's storage capacity, nearing it in style and ease of use, adding extra features like an FM tuner or voice recorder and, in some cases, undercutting Apple in price.
The competition also includes players introduced earlier this year from Samsung Electronics Co, Sony Corp, and MP3 player pioneer, Rio Audio.
For their part, Samsung, Sony and Virgin have brand and style cachet -- not to mention deep pockets. Rio and Creative, smaller companies, have earned points in user-friendliness, while Dell and Archos are offering lower prices for the capacity.
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