The global market for MP3 music players is expected to rise fivefold to more than 124 million units in 2008 from 26.5 million sold last year.

The growing popularity of flash memory type players will boost the growth of the MP3 gadgets, which are replacing traditional compact disk (CD), mini disk (MD) and cassette tape players, it said.

The maximum capacity of portable flash memory players will also go up to 8 gigabytes next year and to 16 gigabytes by late 2007 from 4 gigabytes in 2005. A 16-gigabyte memory can store up to 4,000 songs.

MP3 players are divided into two categories _ hard disk drive players and flash-memory players. With their 10- to 60-gigabyte hard drives, the hard drive models can hold more songs than flash drives but are losing their charm as the capacity of flash memory is rapidly closing in on hard drives. Also, hard disk drives are bigger than flash players in size and are more vulnerable to external damage.

About 20 percent of the MP3 player market is currently shared by South Korean manufacturers such as Reigncom, Samsung, Cowon and several others, while U.S. giant Apple is leading the market with its iPod series.

The flash type market has long been dominated by South Korean firms, but Apple began to make inroads into the market with its two new products, the iPod shuffle and iPod nano. The most recent nano models have capacities of 2 gigabytes and 4 gigabytes, which can store up to 500 and 1000 songs, respectively.

Worldwide total units and revenue for all of the audio player market _ including portable, home players, car stereos and DVD players, cell phones and game consoles that have MP3 players as a secondary feature _ will reach 945.5 million units and $145.4 billion, respectively, by 2009.

By: Docmemory
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