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A number of Asia-based companies are poised to introduce new players with the emphasis on looks and features and they expect consumers to pay for them.

On the back of a worse-than-expected performance in the last quarter, Creative has just unveiled the music and video-playing Zen Vision (pictured) and will follow it with a new Zen Micro.

'Both products have higher average selling prices and potentially could provide us with higher margins,' Craig McHugh, president of Creative Labs, told Reuters.

Similarly Reigncom, which makes iRiver devices, is hoping to boost its profit margins with the release of the U-10, a flash-memory based player with a 2.2in screen

However their efforts may be in vain as Apple seems poised to remain one-step ahead with the release of new iPod models in the near future and the unveiling of Motorola's iTunes-playing phone.

Apple's rivals are also pinning their hopes on an upsurge in digital music downloading from the likes of Yahoo! Music, Real and Rhapsody whose stores are not compatible with the iPod, although until now the iPod's tight integration with Apple's iTunes software, and consequently its music store, appears to have worked in its favour.

Apple's estimated 70 per cent market share has already caused one high-profile casualty, Rio, which closed its doors last week having pioneered MP3 players in the pre-iPod days. The likes of Riegncom and Creative will be keen to see that they do not join them. However Apple may be the least of their worries, as the 'big-name' manufacturers - Sony, Toshiba and Samsung included - continue to introduced new models.

But JK Woo, president of South Korean manufacturer MPIO, believes that the smaller firms can survive by being different.

'This is a fashion business - why would everybody want to wear the same shirt?' he said. 'We've no intention to compete with the big boys. Customers who buy MPIO buy us because they love our style. People who buy Sony or Samsung buy it because of the brand.'