MP3 player sales on rise
MP3 Player News
Canada’s hottest high-tech toy is the MP3 player, but that won’t necessarily make MP3 manufacturers very happy.
While sales of MP3 players tripled in Canada between June, 2004, and June, 2005, according to research by the NPD Group market consultancy, nearly half of the people who bought them intended them as gifts, and a significant number of them couldn’t remember the brand they bought.
The growth of MP3 players far outpaced other hot high-tech toys such as flat-screen televisions, both LCD and plasma, which were in second place, and digital single-lens reflex cameras.
The Apple iPod is still the most popular MP3 player, NPD says, but other brands have lots of room to gain market share because the brand name is not the most important factor when Canadians select which one to buy. Pricing, followed closely by product features, were considered more important to consumers than brand names.
NPD found two distinct kinds of Canadian MP3 buyers: those buying MP3 players for themselves (47 per cent) and those purchasing the players for others as gifts (47 per cent). Those who purchased MP3 players for themselves were more likely to be male (63 per cent) between the ages of 18 and 34 (60 per cent), who were looking mainly for features (47 per cent) and pricing (45 per cent).
Purchases influenced by brand-name recognition counted for only 28 per cent of the buyers.
Consumers who purchased MP3 players as gifts tended to be female (54 per cent) between the ages of 35 and 54 (66 per cent). The primary recipients of the MP3 gifts were teenage children under 18.
In this group, good value at a good price were more important than name brand in making the decision of which player to buy.
But a significant portion of this group — 17 per cent — did not remember the name of the brand they purchased, and 30 per cent said that they would have purchased an alternative brand if the one they were looking for had not been available.