BenQ are Taiwan’s market leading flash-based MP3 player manufacturer with around 20% of local market share and are cashing in on the increased demand for larger capacity players with the release this month of the Joybee 720, which was originally unveiled in prototype form at Japans Createc back in October.

The 99 x 58.4 x 14.7mm, 114gram sized player looks like it’ll be aimed at the UK and Australia outside of the local market where its list price is $9900Taiwan ($311 equiv.). The 5gb player uses a Seagate 1 inch drive and has a slot for SD/MMC cards.It has the standards like WMA and MP3 compatibility, FM radio, 1.8 inch color display, USB 2.0 and 10 hour battery life.

Oddly there is no voice recording facility, something which usually comes as standard on these things. Again, a nice looking, full featured player in the increasingly busy mid sized market, but it’ll take something more to dislodge the iPod mini which is expected to increase capacity early 2005 from 4 to 5GB (using the same Seagate hard drive).

Related Reading

Apple Begins Manufacturing New iPod Mini Player [AppleInsider.com]
Apple Readies 5GB iPod [theRegister.com]
Creative Zen Micro [Creative]
Zen Micro Review [PCMag.com]
5GB MP3 Players [i4u.com]
Micro Hard Drive MP3 Players [CNet Reviews]

Some nice looking compact MP3 players on the way from Korean manufacturer Safa next month. The SR range has four models, the 128mb M800F , 256mb M820F , 512mb M850F and the 1GB capacity M890F . The players are available in four colours, blue, red, black and silver.

On the up side they will play Ogg Vorbis, WMA and MP3 formats have a 1.5inch color screen, FM tuner and are a compact 41mm x 76.2mm x 17mm, on the downside they only come with USB 1.1. The units also come with built in stereo speakers. The models will be available in the UK next month with the 1GB coming in at a hefty $365 (189 UK pounds) . Hard to see where their market is aiming at with the 20gb Apple iPod retailing in the UK for just another 30 pounds. More details will be announced at the Las Vegas CES 2005 in January.

If we tried to feature just three Far Eastern MP3 manufacturers here a day, it would take over a year to squeeze all of them in. Recent reports suggest that including smaller low volume operators there could be as many as 1000 manufacturers in China alone. We decided to look at a few of the more unusual, ugly or just plain odd MP3 players being churned out in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, some of them you’ll never find in the West some of them will find their way to mainland Europe, the UK and USA eventually.

The Zarva MM comes in four sizes of 128/256/512 and 1GB of flash memory, supports the usual MP3, WMA, Wav and ASF, has a recordable FM tuner, USB 2.0, voice recorder and a choice of three body colors, silver, blue and red. Its ‘big brother’, the Z-Pod M200 has a 20gb HDD, FM radio, voice recorder support for MP3/WMA/WAV and OGG Vorbis. It clocks in at 186grams, 66.5�99.5�22mm dimensions and has a 160 x 105 LCD display.

The Korean Woodi brand boast a big range of flash players including the funky looking 256mb Swing WD M400 model pictured here in white/grey (see also below). Still in Korea, iBead (or T Mode as its known for the Korean home market) have a number of smaller flash models and the larger iBead 1000 which has a 1.5gb HDD, support for MP3, WMA and Ogg, 128 x 128 pixel color screen, USB 2.0, FM radio and voice recorder which are standard features on even the smallest models in Korea and China.

Ann are another Korean manufacturer with a range of flash players including the 128mb FM 7000.Chinese manufacturer EZMax have a nice looking range of flash players including the EZMP 3100 model in a choice of red and silver and 128/256mb capacity. Hong Kong’s WeWa have a big range of models ranging from bog standard 128mb models to the king size 20gb HD 200. Gemei, Pisa, Koky and BeAll are just another handful of the army of firms popping up in China by the day it seems. In the flash player market ‘war’ things will be hotting up a tad in the new year should Apple announce their own entry in the flash player market as expected at Mac World Expo , something which will not only boost Apple’s own profile but also have a ripple effect on some of the more promising newcomers.

Related Reading
The Chinese MP3 Invasion [MusicbizNews24.com]
Whats Hot and Whats Not in the MP3 Market [Chosun Korea]
Sales of MP3 Mobile Phones to Break 5 Million at Home This Year [Chosun Korea]

Far EastTech Sites
Ez iT [Ezit.com.cn]
MPLove Korea
IMP3 [IMP3.net China]
MPNavi [MPNavi China]
PC Online Digital Audio [PC Online China]

We’re not sure if there are any plans for its its availability in the West but Hong Kong based Matsunichi announced a mid range MP3 player last month with a 2.2 GB micro hard -drive. The MD289 comes with a 1 inch 2.2 GB hard drive, OLED screen, FM radio, the usual support for MP3, WMA and Wav and a choice of five colours, silver, pink, blue, white and light green. There’s a 5GB version on its way too. Matsunichi are better known for their wide range of Flash based memory players in China.

Such is the ferver and anticipation of the (still as yet unconfirmed by Apple) soon come Apple Flash-memory based audio portable, that impatient Mac addicts have taken it upon themselves to come up with a slew of predictive dummy prototypes of the much rumoured ‘iPod Flash.’

The best examples of which you’ll find at the independent iPod user site iPod Lounge and Isamu Sanada’s accomplished Japanese Applele Mac fansite . One thing that is certain is that Apple’s ‘inevitable’ arrival into the smaller capacity portable market will undoubtedly have the same effect on the Flash player arena that it did on the hard disk drive player marketplace when the iPod was introduced in late 2001. This will quite possibly have the effect of putting a rocket under the profile of some of the (hundreds) of manufacturers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. A report by market research specialists IDC in September predicted that the worldwide market for MP3 players would hit $58 billion by 2008.

The report predicted that the biggest growth in MP3 players should come from portable flash players. The volume of flash players shipped will jump to 50 million units in 2008, up from 12.5 million in 2003. The competitive global MP3 player market is expected to more than double this year to 15.4 million units from last year’s 7.5 million units.

There is estimated to be over 400 MP3 manufacturers in mainland China and 2003 saw up to 4.5 million units shipped, half of which were for export markets . Export figures are projected to reach 6 million by the end of 2004. Recent statistics by the China Center for Information Industry Development show that 1.77 million MP3 players were sold in the country last year, a 235.8 percent growth compared with the previous year. It predicts that for this year, China will have domestic sales of over 4 million players, a projected 200 percent increase. In other studies, Taiwan based AT Chip Corp, a major designer of MP3 chips projects annual shipments of MP3 players in the Chinese mainland will reach 20 million units next year, and 50 million units in 2007.

The dramatic growth of the Chinese mainland’s MP3 player market has also been fuelled by the increasing penetration of broadband Internet, which accommodates faster downloads. The average price of an MP3 player fell from 1,100 yuan (US$133) last year to 700 yuan (US$84) in the first half of this year, indicates Beijing-based data tracking firm CCW Research. AT Chip Corp’s Micheal Chang told China Daily that more dramatic price drops are expected, given decreasing costs of chips, which will boost the MP3 player market. AT Chips unveiled a new semiconductor for MP3 players last month that the firm claim is the least expensive chip of its kind in the industry at much less than $5. “When the cost of a chip is lower than US$5, the MP3 player market will undergo snowballing growth,” said Chang.

The possibility of a Flash-based iPod surfaced in October this year, when Thomas Weisel analyst Jason Pfaum claimed, citing “numerous” Asian sources, that Apple will use MP3 chip maker SigmaTel’s controller chip in an upcoming music player.

Related Links

Shenzen Hosts up to 500 MP3 Player Manufacturers [GlobalSources.com]
China to Lead Global MP3 Market Growth [MacWorld UK]
Apple to Sell 22m Flash-iPod Within Two Years – Analyst [Yahoo News]
iPod Share Slips 5% on Strong Flash Sales [Mac Observer]
MP3 Player Market at Full Volume [China Economic Net]
The ABoss iPocket Says, Apple Please Sue Us! [Engadget]
iPod Competitors are Going After a Slice of Apple’s Pie [Seattle Post Intelligencer]
MP3 Player Market Set to Explode [CNetNews]
Korea Loses Out in MP3 Player Market [Korea Times]

ReignCom, Korea’s leading digital music device manufacturer, said it will release its first hard-disk model next week in Korea in a direct stab at the popularity of Apple’s iPod . The new iRiver H10 is built around a 5-gigabyte hard disk that is capable of holding more than 1,200 songs (ripped at 128kpbs) and has several features and functions not available on the iPod mini. With colour 1.5-inch LCD, an extra GB of storage, FM radio, voice recording, digital photo album display and a text viewer program viewer that supports more than 40 languages.

The player features a vertical touch-scroll controller and a rechargeable battery that allows 12 hours of playing time and is set to appear in the USA in January. At 363, 000 Won in local money that converts to around $342. It will come in four colors, Neo Silver, Deep Red, Midnight Blue and Slate Grey.

Speaking to the Korea Herald a ReignCom spokesman said : “The release of our hard-disk-type model doesn’t mean that our focus will shift away from our flash-memory-based products. It’s more of a counter against Apple’s rising popularity in the market,” adding that the company is planning to release 20-gigabyte and 40-gigabyte models next year.

More than 90 percent of Korea’s digital-music players use flash memory for storage with some models offering up to a gigabyte of capacity, according to industry analyst groups. However, the world market for hard-disk music players is increasing by 45 percent annually and is expected to over take flash-memory products by the end of 2005. Flash-memory MP3 players accounted for 60 percent of the world market in 2003.

Related Reading

Reigncom Unveils Hard-Disc MP3 Player [Korea Herald]
For iRiver Enthusiasts [MisticRiver.net]
Reigncom Challenges Apple’s iPod [Korea Times]
iRiver H10 is Out ! [DapReview.net]
iRiver May Finally Have an iPod Challenger [AudioGoGo.com]
iRiver H320 [CNet Reviews]

Sony launched another salvo in the increasingly busy hard disc drive music portable ‘wars’ today in Amsterdam with the release of the 20GB capacity Sony Walkman NW-HD3 , Sony’s first MP3 compatable hard-disk music player. The world’s biggest consumer electronics maker aims to make up for the lost ground it has conceded to Apple in the portable music device market.

The NW-HD3 will be available in Great Britain and Japan before Christmas and elsewhere in Europe in early 2005. The Walkman is 30 pounds more expensive than Apple’s 20-gigabyte product selling for 219 pounds ($476). The device comes in five colors, plays 2.5 times longer on one battery charge than iPod’s 12 hours and can contain 10,000 to 13,000 songs, at least twice as many as an iPod because of Atrac’s better compression technology, claim Sony.

Sony has sold 340 million Walkman devices since they were originally introduced in 1979. Sony’s first attempt at a hard-disk player in July, the NW-HD1 didn’t threaten Apple’s complete domination in the portable digital music player market, it was more expensive and only came with native support for Sony’s propriatory ATRAC3 format. Fans of the more popular MP3 format had to use a messy workaround to enable MP3 playback.

Putting MP3 playback capability in the new Sony Walkman NW-HD3 means consumers can directly import and export tracks in the MP3 format. Sony said it will produce software upgrades for earlier players with hard disk storage so they can play MP3s too.

Sony have got their work cut out cutting into Apple’s domination, especially in the USA where Apple are said to have a massive 92% market share. In Japan the Sony 20-gigabyte Net Walkman is only the seventh best seller.
According to a report by one Wall Street analyst , the popularity of Apple’s iPod is exceeding that of Sony’s Walkman during the 80′s and 90′s. “iPods are being adopted faster than Sony Walkmans were back in the early 1980s,” the report claims. A graph accompanying the report reveals that after nearly 2.5 years, iPod shipments are approximately 1 million units ahead of the Walkmen’s pace after being on the market for the same period of time.

Related Links

Sony Unveils Potential iPod Buster [ZDNet.co.uk]
Sony Unveils New MP3 Hard Disk Walkman [MacObserver.com]
Challengers Nip at Apple’s iPod [CBSNews.com]
iPod Killers for Christmas [MP3Newswire.net]
Apple iPod Holds Sway in Japan [International Herald Tribune]
iPod Adoption Rate Faster than Sony Walkman [AppleInsider.com]
King of Music Players [LATimes.com -reg.req.]