Korea: 30% of phones will be MP3 players by end of year; Samsung preview first mobile with hard drive; Operators and labels complain.
The report in Digital Chosunilbo goes on to state that "the big three" of Samsung, LG and Pantech & Curitel are supplying 4-5 million MP3 handsets. Adding in other manufacturers brings the estimate to 30% of the 3 million units expected to be sold in South Korea this year.
The Feature report on Samsung's media phone with a 1.5G hard drive. The SPH-V5400, to go on sale at the end of the year, may not be a huge leap in storage, but "the fact that Samsung's engineers have shoehorned a hard drive in way ahead of anybody else reinforces the company's ambitions".
Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to sign handset manufacturers to support windows media format -- currently only used on Windows Smartphones.
With iTunes appearing on Motorola phones, it seems that "Apple will let cell phones become low end playback devices while the iPod will continue to appeal to high end users."
But NewMediaAge report: "Universal, BMG, Vodafone and Orange have warned that moves by handset manufacturers to let consumers put songs they've bought online onto MP3 phones will damage the development of a legitimate mobile music market". The worry is that allowing mobiles to accept content from a PC will increase the risk of piracy for the record labels, while reducing data revenues for operators. Further, there is the chance that users will be able to create their own ringtones from MP3s, resulting in a dent to Europe's €2bn a year ringtone market.
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