Cell Phone Memory Cards Could Pose Threat to Apple iPod

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Cell Phone Memory Cards Could Pose Threat to Apple iPod

6:30 am on April 29, 2006 | Category: Business, Mobile Devices, Cell Phones, Multimedia

With more and more customers wanting access to digital storage, the market for removable cell phone memory cards has exploded in recent years, growing by 160% last year alone.

The amount of storage demanded is also increasing, as memory capacity becomes a more important feature for mobile devices. In 2005, the average mobile memory card had a capacity of 112MB, but this number is set to grow to 1.6GB by 2010.

Many analysts now believe that this trend, along with the constantly improving media functionality of cell phones, will pose a big threat to the Apple iPod’s dominance of the digital music market.

This is just one more reason why Apple should try and corner the fast-growing converged communication and entertainment market with an iPod cell phone or other converged device, as competition is bound to increase in the months and years to come.

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I don’t think so. The iPod still offers more storage capacity than any flash memory will for the next few years, so there is not a big threat. Also, Apple will keep up with the times and offer bigger iPods by the time cell phones can compete, or they may have their own by then.

Comment by Jason — April 29, 2006 #
Its not only the size. The price to download music off the mobile networks is simply prohibitive. So unless prices come down, there is little reason for me to want to phone that does music, unless the networks allow me to transfer the music using my Mac or PC. So far very few of them have shown any appetite for that.

Comment by Mohan — April 30, 2006 #