MP3 Player Makers Gear Up for Fierce Competition
Small and medium enterprises are making good progress in the Korean MP3 player market and large corporations are trying hard to catch their market share.
LG Electronics announced that it would launch its first 5 MP3 player models called "Xfree" on Thursday. Until now, LG Electronics sold other firms' produced MP3 players by attaching its brand logo but now, it will produce its own designed players at its Pyeongtaek plant.
Samsung Electronics aims to make MP3 players their new main product and is carrying out huge scale marketing starting from the beginning of this year. The firm raised its MP3 player team's workforce up to nearly 30 percent and reshuffled distribution and service networks. Therefore, Samsung's MP3 market share was only 10 percent in the previous year but it was able to occupy up to 25 percent in the first half of this year.
The reason why large corporations strengthen MP3 marketing is because the MP3 market is noticeably growing in both domestic and foreign markets. A medium-sized enterprise called Reigncom is the winner of the present domestic MP3 market in Korea with its brand "iRiver." Reigncom's domestic market share is more than 50 percent.
The size of the domestic market will grow by nearly 50 percent, from 1.2 million units last year to 1.9 million units this year.
Director Choi Dong-jin of LG Electronics said, "The MP3 player market is rapidly increasing in both the domestic and foreign markets." He added, "We are planning to hold a variety of marketing strategies in order to enhance the brand recognition so that we can actively target foreign markets."
Foreign companies such as Apple, Sony and Philips have recently jumped into the Korean MP3 market by launching new models. The No. 1 MP3 maker, Apple, launched its "iPod mini," which enables one to hold about 2,000 songs, and Sony recently launched its first memory type MP3 model.
(Kim Ki-hong, darma99@chosun.com )
