Cell phones able to play music and portable multimedia devices might have a negative impact on the market of specialized MP3 players. However, the number one gadget won't go down without a fierce fight, and the forecasts announce impressive results.

IDC announced, at the end of last week, new previsions for the MP3 player market. According to the published data, the number of units sold in 2009 will be of 945.5 million, the value of the emergent market reaching $145 billion. Last year, the total sales of MP3 players reached 224.9 million units, and their total value amounted to $46.7 billion. The MP3 player category includes all the digital devices capable of playing MP3 files: specialized flash players, cell phones, CD/DVD players etc.

Last year, the number of flash memory players exceeded 26.5 million units, and by 2009, their number will exceed 124 million. In other words, we shouldn't be afraid that this device might become obsolete, because the forecasts are more than favorable.

In addition, once Flash memory capacities increase and their price decreases, more and more users will start adopting these solutions for their MP3 player. IDC also announces that the maximum flash storage capacity might reach 16GB by 2007.


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