I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago, for which I was gleefully called out on by some Apple fan boys. Basically, I predicted that the iPod quarterly sales would decline again due to strong growth in phone-based MP3 players - a triumph for the Conversionists over their gang rivals, the Separatistas.
In the event, I was wrong. The iPod did show a small growth after two quarters of decline. But never one to stop banging my drum until proved conclusively wrong, I still think the days are very numbered for the stand-alone MP3. In fact, sales of the converged MP3 mobile are so rampant that they already considerably out-number pure plays.
According to the latest from Nokia, they already sell more phones with MP3’s that iPod’s annualised sales. iPod sold 8.7 million last quarter, which gives them an annualised sale of 32.8 million - OK, let’s be generous and say 40 million, to take into account Christmas and other seasonal fluctuations.
Last year, Nokia sold 46.5 million and expect to sell 100 million this year.
Now the last refuge for the Separatistas will be “Yeah, but just coz people can use their phone’s MP3 players doesnt mean that they will. I mean, like, I never use my phone’s calculator.”
Well, according to Nokia 2 out of 3 people already use this part of the phone’s facilities, so that doesn’t really wash either. In fact, doing the maths for you, more than 20 million more people will use Nokia MP3 players this year than buy iPods.
Now, I’m sure we’ll get some usual suspects saying “but, but, but..” and yes, I appreciate that some people will always prefer to use a stand-alone device for the foreseeable future - myself included, by the way. But, let’s face it, the battle for the mainstream has already been fought and won. The Conversionists have taken this field and are already setting their sites on video cameras.
[tags] ipod, separatista, convergionist, nokia, mp3 [/tags]
[...] Link: The Mobile v the iPod Revisited at MobHappy Well, according to Nokia 2 out of 3 people already use this part of the phone’s facilities, so that doesn’t really wash either. In fact, doing the maths for you, more than 20 million more people will use Nokia MP3 players this year than buy iPods. [...]
“according to Nokia 2 out of 3 people already use this part of the phone’s facilities,”
Can we see the original source of this Nokia claim - provided without a link it could have been plucked from any marketing mans spiel and you have to assume Nokia have a vested interest in claiming people use the MP3 playing abilities of their phones, so they’re hardly unbiassed…
I’m thinking MP3 ringtones, maybe? Bear in mind the phone will probably ship with some MP3 ringtones built in, so use of one isn’t even a clear indiciation of desire to download an MP3 ringtone, let alone a real song. I personally wouldn’t count use of a ringtone as proof of a mobile being a music player, so I’d need to see the data which led to this “2 out of 3″ claim before I believed it… as an example, my ex couldn’t tell you what an MP3 was but I know the (built-in) ringtone on her K700 is an MP3.
A quick straw poll of people in my office, an office in which we do mobile phone development and (almost) everyone has top end phones, suggests maybe 1 in 8 play music on their phone, but that’s hardly a statistically viable sample…
(and no, I’m not an iPod fan…)
Doh sorry, i see the source of the quote - the link further up, in which publicly traded company Nokia are justifying their investment into the Nokia Music Store and $60m purchase of Loudeye, possibly an indication of bias - so please interpret that “source” bit as a request to see the actual reserarch or at least a summary of it…
Convergance will happen, but I don’t see it as a zero sum game with one winner for a good many years.
Raddedas - I think you said it yourself, old chap “A quick straw poll of people in my office, … but that’s hardly a statistically viable sample…”
But seriously, I don’t think we can accuse Nokia of lying about sales - that would be pretty naughty, so the main point I want to make, namely, that there are more converged devices that stand alone ones, is hard to argue with.
So what we’re talking about is people actually using their converged devices. I agree that the 2 out of 3 seems high. Having said that anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that a lot of users of phone MP3 and Podcast downloaders seem to be people without stand alone MP3 players. This would probably make the people in your office, and me for that matter, a very unrepresentative sample.
Anyway, time will tell. It would also be a little boring if I stuck to stating the bleeding obvious here, so taking a position on something (even if I’m wrong sometimes) is part of the fun.
Russell
Is that 2 out of 3 globally? In specific markets? 2 out of 3 people listening to MP3s as a substitute for iPod listening, or 2 out of 3 listening to MP3s on their phone and on an ipod?
From what I see out there myself, the ipod seems dominant. I’m one of those “just cos people can, doesn’t mean they are” separistas for the moment, but prepared to change my mind on it. A friend who works in primary schools in London tells me using phones to play MP3s is widespread amongst kids, but then that’s probably not affecting ipod sales because those kids may not have the disposable income to get an ipod. Heh, maybe the phones are getting them hooked and persuading them to swear fealty to Mr Jobs…
I guess what I’d like to see is some independent evidence to this effect (neither Nokia nor Apple count as independent!). I’m surprised there hasn’t been any proper research into it yet; I mean, mobiles and music players are pretty visible in contemporary culture…
And something like this will mean we don’t all have to rely on statistically invalid anecdotal evidence
Personally I’m a bit disturbed that the phones-replacing-ipods meme hasn’t become so obviously true after a couple of years of floating around…
Russell: I’ll always respect someone more for taking a stand so please continue
As Tom seems to agree, it would be nice to have some independent stats to explain what is happening in the market, and any argument is strengthened by real stats rather than unverifiable quotes from a PR bunny.
As an aside, m:metrics reckons that the UK is powering ahead in the mobile-phone-as-music-player stakes with 3.0% of users using their phones to play music, ahead of Spain on 2.8% and leaving the US trailing at 0.7% of users. At most half of these users also download music to their phones. I am *far* more inclined to trust them on this than Nokia, because they don’t make music phones, they didn’t just spend $60m on a music portal and I have found their stats in the past to be very good (insofar as far as anyone can judge these things).
http://mmetrics.com/press/PressRelease.aspx?article=20060912-sept06benchmark
But just to be clear: nothing against you or your stand in the long run I think we’ll definitely see some convergance, I’m just against the invention or abuse of stats in press releases!
As a professional PR bunny using the old survey when news is slow is a guaranteed way to get yourself press coverage. Journos (and to an even greater extent bloggers) see headline figures and rarely scratch below the surface - just taking them as read and jump straight to their conclusions without questioning (no offence Russell). Mind you its better than being on this side of the fence - I hardly believe anything I read……
As a PR wolf I gobble up bunnies who suggest puerile, lame suggestions such as surveys since hardened hacks will gleefully remove the name of the company doing the survey but run w/the results. Guilty, your honor.
Only PR bunnies believe that journos “just tak[e] them as read and jump straight to their conclusions”. The stories you see in print are the rare ones that make it through the cynical hierarchy of subs, copy tasters etc.
My Razr is a great handset. It also plays MP3s. It does so badly, in mono. I have yet to use my iPod as an address book but I cherish both for their core function.
Might be coming a little late to the game with this comment but I think it’s a no-brainer that mobiles will replace the iPod. Granted it may not happen overnight since, as Tom points out, the iPod is aimed at the slightly older demographic who are likely to stick to it but it’s already obvious that kids are not going to fiddle around with two devices when they can deal with one. We went and did some [vox pop|http://www.w2forum.com/i/mobileYouth_video_interviews] research the other day about kids’ views on the issue and the response was fairly conclusive.
Apple and other MP3 branded players will have nothing to worry about for the immediate future in terms of short-term sales impact but they will lose the youth market and their brands will age along with their demographic. Just as Levi’s let their brand grow old and allowed competitors such as Diesel to enter the youth market, Apple will face a “youth void”.
As for Nokia’s claim, I believe it (for once). Granted phones don’t have the memory capacity of some of the MP3 players around but neither do most people necessarily need 20G of memory. When you’re 15-16 years old you probably only know a handful of bands and listen to them repeatedly, for which 1G on a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone is more than sufficient.
One comment says on the video said it all. When asked if he had an iPod one respondent simply pointed at his Sony Ericsson Walkman and said, “This is my iPod”.
[...] The research also confirms another of my little theories - that many kids are using the mobile to listen to music. In fact 30% use their mobile as their main device for this. I quoted Nokia a few weeks back who were claiming that about two thirds of people used their phone for playing music and several people scoffed at me for believing them - you know who you are . Bearing in mind that this research was talking about using the phone as the main music consumption device and Nokia’s claim was in reference to people ever using it like that, I think that they’re roughly in the same ballpark. The figures would be much nearer if applied to teens, not tweens, as well. [...]