News 

The research firm predicts that demand will be driven by falling flash memory costs, availability of paid media downloads services and increasing consumer awareness. It also notes that were it not for the emergence of music-enabled mobile phones the portable player market could have been expected to grow even faster.

'Demand for portable MP3 players is booming, as more and more consumers get acquainted with their stylish form

ADVERTISEMENT

factors and digital audio functionality,' said Susan Kevorkian, program manager, Consumer Markets: Audio at IDC.'

Other factors that IDC believes will be significant are the expansion of flash memory capacity to an anticipated 16GB by 2007 and support for music video, much as Apple has introduced with its new iPods.

'It is quite possible that a next generation video-enabled iPod may have not only a larger display, but Apple may also have more content available by that point,' Kevorkian said.

She added that MP3 players will be only a small part of the 945.5 million devices capable of playing compressed audio that IDC expects will be shipped by 2009.

'In addition, DVD players, mobile phones and gaming devices that play back compressed audio will be key drivers of the compressed audio player market during the forecast period,' she said.