BBC NEWS | Technology | Consumers 'snub portable video'
Jupiter Research claims that European consumers are more interested in mobile audio technology than video or smartphones.
The report concluded that the driving force behind the growth of Europe's portable player market was likely to be music, rather than films or any combination of the two.
and...
Dedicated music players are the only established digital media players in Europe today despite their high prices," said Ian Fogg, Jupiter analyst.Mr Fogg said although video players and smartphones were trying to cash in on this success they faced a tough job because of the compromises that had to be made when creating a dual-purpose device.
"Europeans care most about music playback," he said.
Seems reasonable given that most people are likely to already have a portal music player e.g. a walkman, in the past and are used to the functionality that it gives.
I think its difficult to predict accurately whether this will be the case from data such as this although common snese would suggest that mobile video in general is going to be niche for a while. General 'smartphone devices' however may have more broad based applications long term and eventually overtake pure audio. See for example the growing convergence in static digital entertainment and computing. If my PS2 / Xbox plays games, DVDs, CDs then why can't my mobile phone do the same?
Oh! It can :)
Posted by Paul Goodison at November 1, 2004 01:41 PM | TrackBack