Sony has made the first step to dethrone iPod from its position as leader on the digital player market. According to Reuters, the new lineup of digital music players is slicing into the popularity of Apple Computer's iPod.

Although Apple is still top seller of hard drive players in Japan, Sony has managed to secure the top position for memory-type players in both May and June, giving the iPod shuffle device the sour taste of second place.

"There is no question that Sony has the potential of being much more competitive," said Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, a U.S.-based research firm. "It could emerge as a more formidable rival to Apple over the next three years."

The new lineup includes models equipped with flash memory chips of 256 MB or 1GB and two players with hard disk drives.

Sony has conquered the Japanese market with the flash players by combining design with extended battery life. These players look a small bottle of perfume and are able to play up to 50 hours of music. Aside from these features, Sony's players also have a display to view what music is playing.

Sony's players are more expensive than the shuffle, but enough consumers seem willing to pay the extra price.