Mobile music handsets and content deals.
The Sydney Morning Herald looks at the prospect of mobile phones becoming music players. '"The music phone is not going to significantly impact the high-end, high-capacity hard disk market but it will certainly have a major impact on the low-end flash market," said Peter King of Strategy Analytics. King estimates sales of phones equipped with MP3 music players will balloon to 796 million in 2010, accounting for three-quarters of all handsets sold, from 94 million this year.'
The article notes that the introduction of cameras to phones in 2000 cut the demand for low-end cameras, but did not overly-impact the industry as a whole. However, although picture quality is an consumer issue, the same is not true for listening to music on the move.
In related news The Register reports on the delay to Nokia's N1 hard disk drive music phone. Adding Windows Digital Rights Management has caused the product to slip. "Nokia says it shipped 46.5m music phones last year, and expects to ship $80m in 2006. But only the hefty N91, with its dedicated music controls, 4GB hard drive, and a real headphone jack, and the slimmer, mid-market 3250, look like they're able to give the ever-shrinking iPod a run for its money."
The Register also take a look at the Sony Ericsson's first Walkman smartphone, the W950. "While your reporter remains sceptical that any multipurpose device can 'kill' the iPod, there's a lot to be said for lower cost devices with greater performance, and the W950 in some respects lives up to this. Phones lack the ease of use from iTunes' dedicated interface, and even more importantly, the synchronization with iTunes - but they will be subsidized by operators keen to buy into a slice of Apple's market."
On the content side, O2 is extending O2 is extending its partnership with music label Universal. Customers will be able to access 100,000 tracks, and will be able to buy ringtones, video tones, video and sound tracks.
