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July 27, 2006
ABI: iTunes Will Dominate Consumer Audio Market
By Michelle Pasquerello, TMCnet Associate Editor
With Apple’s (News - Alert) third quarter endings citing a 32 percent growth in iPod sales over the year-ago quarter, it might seem hard to believe that its ever-famous portable media device would soon be under-rug-swept by Apple’s music service iTunes.
With over a billion downloads since its inception, iTunes has gained enough momentum to forge Apple ahead of the audio and video market, making the iPod Apple’s second largest revenue generating product. According to ABI Research, while the battle for portable listening devices has been conquered by the iPod, iTunes puts Apple in the lead for the home audio market.
Sales in accessories, such as docking stations and speakers, have exceeded the expectations of most analysts, making the consumer interest an important factor in market success.
"I think we will soon see more line-powered consumer audio devices—high-end audio devices with AV receivers, and multi-room audio systems—adding support for iTunes to their current support for iPod," said Vamsi Sistla, research director for ABI Research in a statement.
With all of the paid content acquired by users over the iTunes service, most home computers are packed with music and video, creating a larger outlet for consumer electronics vendors.
“The field is wide open for PC manufacturers and other vendors of home CE systems to capitalize on what should be a large and dynamic market," noted Sistla.
Said Steve Jobs ( News - Alert) about Apple’s success in iPod revenue, “iPod continued to earn a US market share of over 75 percent and we are extremely excited about future iPod products in our pipeline.”
Apple posted its second highest quarterly revenue and earnings in history earlier this month.
(source: http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/07/27/1746899.htm)
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