“Samsung Electronics is determined to emerge as the world’s largest portable audio jukebox supplier, outstripping the present No. 1 vendor Apple Computer of the U.S., by 2007. The Korean electronics giant, currently the world’s largest memory semiconductor and liquid crystal display (LCD) maker, but eighth in the global MP3 player vendor market, said Thursday it would secure a 25-30 percent global market share and 50-55 percent of the domestic MP3 player market by 2007,” Kim Sung-jin reports for The Korea Times.
“The latest move by Samsung Electronics is expected to trigger a huge change in the landscape of the global digital music player market. ‘Samsung Electronics has set its worldwide MP3 player sales target to over 5 million units this year. By shoring up our digital audio device business, we will grow into the world’s top MP3 player vendor by 2007,’ said Ahn Tai-ho, senior executive director of Samsung Electronics and CEO of Samsung Bluetek,” Sung-jin reports. “Samsung Bluetek is a fully owned digital audio device and home theater system manufacturing subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.”
“Samsung Electronics sold a total of 1.7 million MP3 players in 2004. Presently, the global digital music player market is dominated by Apple, which enjoyed great success with its hard disk drive (HDD)-based iPod MP3 players,” Sung-jin reports. “Toward the end of its audacious goal, Samsung, a relatively latecomer to the MP3 player market, plans to unfold aggressive marketing campaigns worldwide, both online and offline, to secure a brand leadership in the global MP3 market.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung is a great company and it’s good to set goals, but we don’t see it cracking very deeply into Apple’s market domination. This article actually provoked a yawn, to tell the truth. Apple already has the mind share, has all price targets covered, has the only player that works with iTunes Music Store (iTMS) and that’s custom-tailored to work perfectly with iTunes. As long as Apple keeps innovating, who’s really going to catch them? What’s Samsung going to do differently than any other so-called “iPod Killer” – give their players away? Kidnap Mr. Ive? What?
Note to would-be “iPod Killers,” iPod is but one component of the experience. The same goes for the so-called “iTunes Music Store Killers” like Napster and Real. The full experience is the three-pronged iPod+iTunes+iTunes Music Store. You can’t kill Apple’s symbiotic solution by attacking only one head of the three-headed beast. And certainly not with players, software, and online stores that pale in comparison to Apple’s offerings.
Apple is expected to sell in excess of 5 million players in the current quarter (90 days) or Samsung’s goal for the entire year of 2005. As new buyers consider what “MP3 player” to buy, they ask their friends and their friends almost all own and say “iPod.” That’s a big part of how Windows got where it is today (of course, iPod is quite different than Windows because it’s a great product – not a product trying to simulate a great product – and Apple seems bound and determined to keep innovating iPod, iTunes, and iTMS). All the Samsung marketing in the world isn’t going to secure a 25-30 percent global market share for them by 2007. The only way to achieve that kind of market share would be for Samsung to cut a deal with Apple to license FairPlay for their players, making them compatible with the iPod+iTunes world.
All Samsung is going to do is help clear out the dreck (iRiver et al.) from the bottom of the market’s barrel sooner.
Nice take.
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Another Luxpro ripoff coming to a store near you!
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Samsung is one of the main producers of Apple hardware.
Good to know who your friends are.. !
I don’t think Samsung, even with millions in marketing, can reach the iPod’s level of mind share.
In my college class the other day the professor showed a picture of iPod minis and mentioned that her 5 year old daughter wanted a mini.
I can’t see Samsung getting that kind of penetration any time soon!
I’m not spreading FUD, but they know how to take on a dominant player in a market. This will just make Apple work that much harder.
BTW- the LCD panels in Apple’s LCD Cinema Displays are made by Samsung.
Exactly! You say “ipod” and the world knows what you are talking about.
Ok, maybe it’s a dumb one…. But what does FUD mean?
Samsung is also Sony’s supplier for plasma and lcd panels, as well as memory chips.
You should all remember that it was once thought to be impossible to topple Microsoft from it’s position of dominance in the world of PC operating systems. Once the market leader stops innovating anything is possible.
Once the slide starts it’s like a snowball rolling downhill, it gains a momentum all of it’s own. Hell, I remember when Microsoft had a 95% market share.
FUD . . . a term supposedly invented by IBM sales and marketing people. “Fear” + “Uncertainty” + “Doubt” = “Don’t even THINK of working with another technology vendor!
Good take MDN. Its definitely YAWN YAWN time as someone tries to talk up the most amazing product (that doesn’t even exist yet) that will be sure to un-throne the reigning iPod/iTunes combo.
We’ll believe it when we see it is all I can say. And who knows, perhaps its reign will be longer than anyone thinks. And perhaps even over time extend to computers in the home… and then in small businesses.
Go Apple! We believe in you more than ever…
“Once the market leader stops innovating anything is possible.”
Very true, but Apple’s hasn’t and is not going to stop innovating. They know there are others who want their position in the market place and Apple’s not going to lie down and let anyone take it. Anyone who wants that position is going to have to work their A$$ off to take any significant piece from Apple.
“Samsung Electronics is determined to emerge as the world’s largest portable audio jukebox supplier…” Kim Sung-jin reports for The Korea Times.
Oh, really?
Sounds like nothing more than the posturing that Creative was doing recently. Hey Samsung, good luck with that.
MDN, shhhhh, be vewy, vewy quiet. Remember, we don’t want Apple’s rivals knowing what they’re doing wrong. Let them flail around in their own ignorance.
If the player only plays nice with Windows, then good luck, iPod is successful for many reason; one reason is because it’s cross platform compatible (Mac, Windows and Linux).
The Earth as well as the humanity infesting it, is living and evolving. Entire empires as well as Walkmans eventually succumb to something better. iPod and American will some day fall… just not today.
Samsung is a huge coproration that obviously has achieved success in both the B2B and B2C markets, but are they No. 1 in anything? No. 2 maybe (and I’m not talking about ranking). Perhaps they should begin rebranding themselves as market leader through something a little more attainable, like dominating the printer cable market or something.
How is this different than any other company that said they were going to topple Apple? Is there something that makes Samsung more able than Sony or Dell or Virgin or iRiver or Creative?
MW = rest. There’s Apple, and then there’s all the rest.
No. 2
Ha, ha, ha.
You said a bad word.
to beat Apple even if they achieve that.
I love this…
“In addition, the company said it would form strategic alliances with local digital contents providers in foreign markets to provide its Yepp MP3 player users to easily purchase and download music files to their digital music devices. It has already clinched a strategic alliance deal with Napster of the U.S.”
Strategic alliances? How can an alliance with niche-players or also-ran be strategic? That’s like saying Jamaica will form a strategic alliance with Botswana. Nothing against either of those two countries but they are not strategic to anything.
Like the previous writer said, these things aren’t even on the market yet, gimme a break.
If Samsung intends to beat the iPod, they’ll have to do a better job than they did with the design of the A500 cell phone. What a buggy P.O.S. that is. I’ll never but another piece of electronics from Samsung ever again.
MW until , as in until hell freezes over.
Why is it so hard for some of you to conceive that Apple could be put in jeopardy by larger companies who had the similar mind set of countries with billions of people as consumers? Just because now Apple has the ear of Americans and Europeans does not mean they rule the commercial world. It is early days in this game. It is nice to cheer for your team but when the other team is training hard it should be a warning.
is samsung kidding or what? they must be on drugs. they already tried with the napster mp3 player that they make. before the ipod, napster was the most incredibly huge name in digital music. with more users registered than yahoo users, it was huge. more people used napster than people who use ipods today.
yet even with that napster name and compatibility to a subscription service that gives you as much music as you want for $15 a month which is a good deal depending on how you look at it, the samsung/napster player is a complete failure.
most people who don’t have an ipod either have a creative player or a dell DJ, because the dell DJ is way cheaper and the creative zen xtra has huge laptop hard drives for cheap.
Cell phones are a good example. Samsung did very wll talked big an got to number 2. However will they seriously dethrone Nokia? It didn’t do it while Nokia were treading water with its phones and now that Motorola has actualy started producing phones with the emphasis on desirabity (like the ipod) they have re taken number 2 spot. Samsung will do well in this market but talking big isn’t everything.
Samsung, #1 LCD producer, #1 memeory producer. Why isn’t that enough? Why do they want to be #1 in every single thing known to man?
Sure Panasonic’s parent company Matsushita makes everything from wallets to Winnebagos, but does it really do anything well anymore?
Don’t these companies see that when you take on too many things, everything suffers? Look at Sony for example, when it was a consumer electronics shop, it was unstoppable. Hit after hit, good quality. When they took on movies, music, computer components and peripherals, quality fell, infighting errupted among its different divisions.
Look at Napster used to be Roxio. In their insane quest to unseat iPod, they sold off the software division which has decent programs for both Mac and PC, and was a profitable, if not stellar revenue producer. What was wrong with being good at what they did? (CD and DVD authoring / burning)
Don’t the shareholders of these companies get pissed off when their money is wasted chasing after something like the iPod? And then after the next big thing? Don’t the shareholders and company directors have any desire to create and lead in a product or service, rather than always copying and chasing after whoever is #1 that day?
#1 is always a moving target, and no matter how much I love Apple and the iPod personally, they will not stay #1 forever. The difference between Apple and those other compasnies (I hope) is that Apple is looking to the future, and developing the next big thing. The rest of those me-too companies are still deciding who they will chase next.