For a lot of people, there's no such thing as "the MP3 player," because they only heard about the iPod. This is very good for Apple's business, but it's not that good for those who would ask some piece of advice from the people I mentioned. Obviously, there's more than the iPod, and during these tough times, finding a better features/price ratio in a media player gets easier with each day - and I am not talking about cheap Chinese players here!
While I won't be able to tell you anything about players better than the iPods, I have to give you some news about the iPod saturation. Could you imagine that? The market is full of them, and now it seems we reached a turning point! Just as a side note, if you have some iPod alternative in mind, drop a comment below and I'll do my best to guide you.
OK, so what about the iPod saturation? According to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, "We believe that the teen demographic is a critical component of long-term growth in the digital music and mobile markets, and Apple is taking its leading position in music and moving aggressively into the mobile market."
The company's 17th bi-annual teen survey clearly shows that the iPod simply saturated the market for the young consumers, with 86% of them using some kind of iPod this spring, compared to 74% in the same period of 2006.
Other interesting facts include the amazing 100% purchase intentions headed towards the iPod, compared to about 80%, during the last 4 years. I am shocked, really. I only have to ask one question - if everyone is buying iPods, how come there are so many different brands on the market? Oh, yeah, there are also older users of MP3 players, and some of them didn't bite the Apple bait...;)
