Philips rolls out digital music player range

Philips Electronics has launched a new range of digital music players called 'GoGear' for the domestic market. The move is in line with global trends where music stereo sales are fast shifting to the digital domain.

"Traditional music systems are seeing a decline of 20 per cent, while portable digital players are seeing triple digit growth," said Gunjan Srivastava, director, entertainment solutions, consumer electronics division, Philips Electronics India.

Anil Khera, director - marketing and sales, Sansui also concurs, "There has been a huge dip in the sales of our music stereos and two-in-one systems with the advent of digital mp3 players."

At present, the portable digital media player market is seen as one of the fastest-growing segments of the consumer electronics industry.

Digital music is music compressed into audio files with file extensions like mp3, wav and wma.The format makes the music convenient to carry, sort and play.This year global shipments of mp3 players are expected to surge more than 20 per cent to 216.9 million units, from 178.1 million in 2006, according to iSuppli Corp. Industry sources estimate that the market size is still small and stands at 500,000 units per month in India and is expected to grow more than 150 per cent.

Branded portable mp3 players in India tend to be expensive due to high import duties, making it the prerogative of the upper middle class. So Philips, with their GoGear range aims to target the burgeoning middle class segment.

"Our range of digital music players are targeted at music loving youngsters, who are eager to try new technology and want to listen to music on the move," said Srivastava.

Philips portable digital music players are priced between Rs 2,999 and Rs 6,999, a few notches below Apple ipod's Shuffle at Rs 5,600 and Nano at Rs 9,800.

Sales managers at consumer electronic retail shops said that Apple ipods were at the top of a customer's wishlist. Earlier, Apple announced their sale of the 100 millionth iPod, making iPod the fastest selling music player in history.

Although Apple has a firm presence in the space Philips eyes a leadership position in the category. Srivastav said, "We are confident that this mix of cutting edge technology at an attractive price proposition will change the dynamics of the portable media player market in India." Sony, Creative and Transcend are the other competitors in the space.

In the coming months, Philips already has plans to ramp up its range by adding new designs in the festive season. The GoGear range supports multi formats of MP3, WMA and WAV, a 10 hour battery life and 1-2 gigabytes of memory storage capacity.