Apple Computer and HP enjoyed an overwhelming market share in September 2004 music player sales. HP’s hard-drive based music player is based on Apple iPod architecture, and two vendors owned a combined 90.9% of the hard drive music player market.
| Hard drive-based music player market shares in September 2004 |
|
| Vendor | Market share, % |
| Apple Computer | 87.3 |
| Hewlett-Packard | 3.6 |
| Rio | 2.8 |
| Creative | 2.6 |
| iRiver | 1.5 |
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Source: |
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Flash-based music player market enjoyed better competition with iRiver and Rio vying for top spots, according to NPD World. Flash-based player sales grew 21% from August 2004 while hard drive-based players grew at 12.2%. In comparison to September 2003, hard drive-based players had a 409% increase while flash players were up just 4.6%.
| Flash-based music player market shares in September 2004 |
|
| Vendor | Market share, % |
| iRiver | 18.8 |
| Rio | 18.6 |
| Digital Way | 15.8 |
| RCA | 8.8 |
| Samsung | 6.2 |
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Source: |
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