Study: Walkman outsells iPod in Japan
The Sony Walkman outsold Apple's iPod in Japan last week, the first time in more than four years, according to a study by Japanese electronics research company BCN.
Sony's slice of the market for digital music players in Japan rose to 43 percent for the week ending August 30, narrowly beating Apple's 42.1 share. The survey didn't include sales results for the iPhone because that device also serves as a cell phone.
While Apple's 8GB iPod Nano took the top sales spot, Sony's Walkman devices outsold all iPods for the week.
(Credit: BCN)Sony achieved its victory through pure sales volume and number of players, said BCN. Apple's 8GB iPod Nano hit the top of the sales charts with a 21.7 percent share of the market, while Sony's mini NW-E042 Walkman came in second with just a 6.2 market share.
But Sony captured six of the top 10 sales spots with different models of its Walkman. In addition to its top 8GB Nano, Apple took the remaining three slots with its 16GB iPod Nano, iPod Classic, and iPod Shuffle.
Sony's win be may due to a variety of factors, according to BCN. The company focuses on lower-cost music players, with the average price of a Walkman dropping in recent weeks while Apple's prices have stayed firm. BCN also said it thinks Apple may be competing with itself, as more Japanese consumers have opted for iPhones rather than buying both an iPod and cell phone.
BCN said it believes the battle for market share will heat up again following Apple's September 9 event, in which the company is expected to announce new iPod models.
Sony's varied line of Walkman players have picked up generally favorable reviews.
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET. 
More troubling to me is that by excluding the iPhone you definitely skew the figures. We need to know how many iPhones were sold as well even if you don't include it in the chart. You would have to figure a large number of those sales were made at the expense of the iPod.
You'll notice that they only show the top 10...the article starts out by saying Sony takes 43% of the market while Apple only has 42.1%. The author references the above chart to showing that Sony has moved up in market share due to the fact that they have 6 of the top 10 spots on the chart...if you're going make a comment, at least make sure you READ the article.
Obviously you're an Apple troll. What does this article or the writer have to do with Microsoft? NOTHING....
What next, a story where Ford outsells GM if you ignore all blue cars?
There is no way Apple or any other savvy company would allow such a statement to be uttered by one of its board members unless it was a carefully thought out part of its strategy, because there is a risk that other product lines may be cannibalised.
Also the iPod Touch is ... an iPod.
Surprisingly enough, the iPhone and Touch are not in the 10 ten of phones or music players in other countries. In Asia particularly, they are indeed a niche market compared to phone offerings from Noka, Samsung, and others. Just because they are popular in this country, doesn't mean they are in other markets. South east Asia in particular is running phone tech that is 4-5 years *ahead* of what the US / European market sees and the iPhone simply is old tech by comparison to what they have there now.
Different market, different needs.
This article is merely reporting what this research firm BCN has studied. Whitney is not making these numbers, nor is he putting any slant on it either. BCN is the one who did the study; blame them if you don't like the scope of their reporting.
BTW, if you include the iPhone, then you MUST include all Sony and Sony Ericsson combo phone devices as well. For that matter, you probably should include all Sony PSP sales as well, since iPhone and a number of iPods do game apps, and PSPs play music and do movies and vids.
Now do you get why BCN drew the line at excluding phone devices?
A suggestion Lance, how about editing the article and make some mention of how many iPhones were sold during the same period. It might give a bit more perspective on the Walkman/iPod sales figures. :-)
As to including Sony smart phones, by all means do so. A quote from http://www.japanaddicted.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5058 follows:
"A survey of 2300 retail stores reveals that Apple has cleaned up in the smartphone market in Japan.
According to nikkei.net, market research company BCN surveyed the market and said the iPhone 3G 8GB, sold by Softbank, easily came in at number one. Second in line was the 16GB iPhone, while the NTT CoCoMo Aquos SH-04A came in at number three." No mention of Sony...
That's only because the Japanese smartphone market, while growing fast, is still a small fraction of the Japanese market.
The market there is still dominated by "conventional" phones. "Conventional" here means by Japanese standards -- these phones are highly advanced 3G phones, feature-packed with dual cameras, mp3 players, video capabilities, etc., -- but they're not "smartphones" so aren't counted as such.
E.g., while the iPhone 3G was the best selling "smartphone" in Japan last year, it wasn't anywhere near the top 10 handset sold in Japan. Apple selling 1 million iPhones in Japan sounds impressive until you realize the annual Japanese market size is over 35 million units.
Look at me, i have a NTT CoCoMo Aquos SH-04A. Great :/
not everybody wants an iphone (gasp, i know), just because it's out there doesn't mean eveybody who is looking for an mp3 player wants the damn thing! some people just want a straight up MP3 player. and that's what they are comparing. get over it.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/08/17/iphone.3gs.tops.in.japan/
Even as the #1 smartphone, iPhone sales accounted for less than 3% of Japan's new phone market. So even if you added all the iPhones sold as iPods, it would still be dwarfed by the number of all other mp3-capable phones sold in Japan.
And iPhones don't sell well in Japan.
Good catch.
One week to go Sony, make the best of it while it lasts.
PS3 beats XBox in Japan
Sony Walkman beats iPod
Toyota beats GM & Cleverly
These are weekly sales, currently the iPods are mostly out of stock ahead of the iPod event on 9 september. This is a very temporarily situation, iPod sales will boom again with the new models.
You may be on to something if they clear inventory in Japan the way they do here in the USA. Here the shelves are somewhat bare of the low end iPods. Still Sony makes a good MP3 player and someone had to fill the void while Apple makes way for the next generation.
The sony that sells walkmans doesn't sell phones. A separate company, sony ericsson sells the phones.
And whoever said the iphone doesn't sell in japan - did you already forget it was the number one selling phone here in July?
Much of the articles in the western media tout the advanced nature of Japanese cell phones with TV tuners and RFID payments, etc., but in practice, most of these features are not heavily used. This is based on not just my observations, but also in reports in the Japanese media.
The only heavily relied on features of Japanese cell phones that the iphone doesn't do are infrared (hardware) for transferring contact info and proper emoji and mail (carriers network issues).
Furthermore with the iphone in Japan, I think they hit the market at the perfect time. It is indeed saturated with local makers and many models, but there have been no new features really added in about 3 years. Since the iphone, some touch screen phones have hit the market though.
which lets face it, is a POS !
it's hard to use {try FF or rewind on it} and lacks basic features , Why would anyone buy it ?
also according to the chart all the walkman models mentioned are in the shuffle category !
but then again if you look at Revenue/Profit I'm sure Apple leads by a big margin !
nothing to worry about for Apple , just that the shuffle needs to be refreshed !
- by theveggiedude September 3, 2009 11:20 PM PDT
- Even in the US, the iPod has fallen behind. It was reported earlier this year that the iPod touch and iPhone are over taking the iPod.
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- by Renegade Knight September 4, 2009 7:20 AM PDT
- Apple expencted that. The MP3 market is maturing, but if they can take a bite out of the smartphone market Apple would condtinue to grow overall. Which they did. It was a nice play on Apple's part.
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