Sony's Walkman overtakes Apple's Ipod in Japan
SONY'S WALKMAN is back and it is giving Jobs' Mob a good kicking in the Land of the Rising Sun.
The Walkman, which was the icon of the 1980s, has been doing the unthinkable and usurped the Apple icon amongst the technology savvy Japanese.
To be fair it is not the cassette version of the Walkman, although that would be incredibly funny to see in the shops again beating the Ipod, but another MP3 player.
The Japanese company's share of portable music players sold climbed to 43 per cent in the week ended August 30, nosing past Apple's 42.1 per cent. Apple has held the top slot in personal music players since January 2005 in Japan.
Apple has rushed to point out that its range of exploding Iphones has cannibalised its Ipod sales. Iphones were not included in the BCN figures because it is a phone and not an MP3 player.
However there are other reasons why Sony is back. First, it has gained market share after introducing inexpensive models including the W series of cordless players that sell for under $108.
Sony also has better sound quality than Apple and it does not have the same crazy Itunes requirement.
Analysts say that it is too early to tell if the Ipod is going to suffer in the same way in Europe or the US.
Both outfits are seeing interest in MP3 players fall. Sales of portable music players in Japan fell by 13.5 per cent in August. This is the fifth straight month of decline, according to BCN.
The hope is that new models from Apple and Sony will lift sales again. Apple will be releasing its new wave of Ipods next week.
On July 30, Sony increased its sales forecast for digital music players to 6.7 million units for the year ending March 2010 from its May estimate of 6.3 million. It flogged 7 million last year. µ
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I don't know why Nick Ferret seems to be so shocked to discover that Japanese consumers prefer Japanese products built by a Japanese company. Sony's (Japanese) Minidisc only had any read success in Japan, where it was at best a niche market in the rest of the world who preferred the Phillips (Netherlands) Compact Disc. Pioneer's (Japanese) LaserDisc persisted for years in Japan long after the rest of the world had adopted DVD and it wasn't until Sony's (Japanese) Playstation 2 was launched that DVD took off in Japan.
Japanese consumers are extremely protectionist when it comes to consumer electronics, they can make even the most zealous US consumer look mild by comparison.
And what kind of shitarse lazy "journalism" is "Sony sounds better than Apple"? Without any kind of independent data to back such a ridiculous claim up it's completely meaningless. Given the quality of headphones bundled with portable music players of all makers how could you even tell? And I can only assume you've never used ATRAC supporting software if you honestly think iTunes is worse.
I purchased one of these Sony players some months ago. Three factors influenced my decision :-
The included earbuds are incredibly good and the journalist is correct in stating that the sound quality is top notch. I suggest that Gordon should listen to these Sony players and he will not need instrumentation to notice the sound quality improvement over an Ipod, the difference is very significant indeed.
These Sony players now allow you to drag and drop your music. The Apple Itunes software method is far too restrictive. Once again the journalist is right on the money with his comments.
The Sony players include a very good FM radio.
Nick you are the apple of my eye
I quite like Sony, but they did take their sweet time jumping on the mp3 bandwagon.. today with the larger harddrive space avalible its really flac's time to shine IMHO.
So does it play .flac?
When you compare the top mp3 players on the market:
iPod, Zune, Sony, San Disk, P2, P3 ETC:
The first thing you find out is the iPod is lacking in sound quality to all those other players.
For the best sound quality look at cowon and iriver.
If you get one of those better sounding players, put Rockbox on it so you have better codec support and audio decoding quality. Plus its interface is usually better than Cowon or iRiver's, which are often terrible.