BEIJING, July 18 CCID-MP3-Market
BEIJING, July 18 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- CCID Consulting, China's leading
research, consulting and IT outsourcing service provider, and the first
Chinese consulting firm listed in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: 8235.HK), recently
released its article on the MP3 market.
Any product has to experience four periods -- an introduction period, a
growing period, a mature period and a recession period. After the introduction
period in 2001, the growing period during 2002-2004, the mature period during
2005-2006, China's MP3 market has entered the terminal stage of the rapid
growing period in 2007: the number of brands are reducing and the sales volume
is shrinking.
The MP3 Market Has an Obvious Downward Trend
The sales volume of China's MP3 player market reached 1.7915 million sets,
down 38.24% over 2007; the sales revenue was 882 million Yuan, down 37.62%
over 2007 during January-April, 2008. The whole market has obvious downward
trends. On one hand, this market is mature and lacks new highlights and
selling points; on the other hand, substitute products such as PMP, music
mobile phones and GPSs cause user diffluence.
Table 1: Size & Growth Rate of China's MP3 Player Market, 2007 Jan-April
and 2008 Jan-April
Sales Volume Growth Rate of Sales Revenue Growth Rate
Year (10,000 Sets) Sales Volume(100 Millionof
Yuan) Sales Revenue
2007 290.08 -- 14.14--
2008 179.15-38.24%8.82 -37.62%
Source: CCID Consulting, June 2008
Market Shuffle Accelerating, Pure Audio Market Brand Concentration
Improving
In the last two years, music mobile phone and PMP occupied part of the MP3
player market. Intense competition drove the acceleration of the convergence
in the industry, some weaker SMEs with have been eliminated. With technical
maturity and the rise of upstream raw materials' prices, MP3 products' profit
is less, so many SMEs have chosen to quit or transform.
At the beginning of 2007, there were lots of MP3 brands, but in 2008, many
brands gradually quit the market and there are now only a few major brands in
the MP3 market, specifically in the pure audio MP3 player market.
Figure 1. CR4 Change of China's Pure Audio MP3 Player Market, 2006-2008
http://www.ccidconsulting.com/upload/13339.jpg
Source: CCID Consulting, June 2008
Figure 2. Top Three Brands' Market Share in Pure Audio MP3 Market, 2008
(by Sales Volume)
http://www.ccidconsulting.com/upload/13340.jpg
Source: CCID Consulting, June 2008.
1G Products Become Mainstream, Demand for 2G Products Increases
With G capacity products' price drop and products' capacity becoming
larger, the structure of the MP3 player market has large changes. By the end
of April, the shares of 256M and 512M products further shrank, and will
gradually withdraw from the market. G capacity products have almost become the
mainstream of player products. 1G product have had steady growth, whose share
is 53.17%; the share of 2G products has largely improved, whose share is
13.72%
With price drops and video browsing demands, consumers put forward higher
requirements on MP3 player capacity. Consumers will pay more attention to 4G
and 8G products, and their market share will be gradually improved.
Table 2. Comparison of MP3 Sales Volume Structure, Jan-April 2007 and
Jan-April 2008
Capacity Sales Volume Structure, Sales Volume Structure,
Jan-April, 2008 Jan-April, 2007
1G53.17% 51.76%
2G27.13% 13.41%
512M6.94% 19.97%
4G 5.56% 2.92%
8G 1.09% 0.54%
256M0.57% 3.50%
6G 0.36% 0.29%
5G 0.03% 0.03%
20G0.02% 0.06%
Others 5.13% 7.51%
Source: CCID Consulting, June 2008
Market is Further Segmented; the Whole Market has Entered the
Comprehensive Strength Competition Era
Just like the development course of the mobile phone and PCs, MP3 players
have considerable progress in capacity, function, appearance design and
audiovisual. What's more, MP3s have a trend towards segmentation. In a
segmented market, although China's pure audio MP3 market is gradually
shrinking, Samsung, Apple and OPPO continue to launch their new products so as
to cater to consumers' demands. For these brands, because of many years' brand
accumulation, high quality and steady channel, these products have steady
presentation in the pure audio MP3 market. In the video MP3 field, excluding
these three brands, Newman, RAmos and Aigo have devoted more energy to screen,
capacity, video format, channels and service so as to gain more market space.
Obviously, the whole MP3 market has transferred from price wars to
comprehensive strength competition.
Terminal Consuming Regional Highlight Transfers to Tier 3, Tier 4 Cities,
Central and Western Areas
Experiencing the development of 2002 to 2007, MP3 player products tend to
saturate China's tier 1 and tier 2 cities, the MP3 player market in these
cities grow slowly. In future markets, potential areas will transfer to
central and western areas and tier 3 and tier 4 cities; the first time
purchase of MP3 players will become the major impetus of MP3 player
development. In addition, judging from the terminal layout of dealers and
manufacturers, the channel construction of these areas is being gradually
improved, which will be the focus of terminal channel construction in the
future.
Onboard MP3 Market Has Great Potential
In recent years, because digital entertainment products are popular and
MP3s can be downloaded music from Internet, onboard MP3 players are auto
owners' new choice. China's onboard MP3 player market officially started in
2006, onboard MP3 players have developed rapidly.
With automobile industrial development and people's living standards
improving, urban China's residents' private cars have been growing rapidly.
Because of the consumption market's continual passion and the automobile
market's rapid development, the onboard MP3 market will grow rapidly.
Currently, China's MP3 market has been in the terminal stage of its mature
period: intense competition, market's slow growth, low profit, traditional MP3
manufacturers starting to set foot in the onboard MP3 market. Newman and OPPO
launched onboard MP3 products so as to gain more market space through
differentiated competition. It is forecasted that onboard MP3 products will
become another focus in future market.
About CCID Consulting
CCID Consulting Co., Ltd. (hereinafter known as CCID Consulting), the
first Chinese consulting firm listed in the Growth Enterprise Market of the
Stock Exchange (GEM) of Hong Kong (stock code: 8235.HK), is directly
affiliated with China Center for Information Industry Development (hereinafter
known as CCID Group). Headquartered in Beijing, CCID Consulting has so far set
up branch offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Chengdu, with
over 300 professional consultants after many years of development. The
company's business scope has covered over 200 large and medium-sized cities in
China.
Based on major areas of competitiveness: industrial resources, information
technology and data channels, CCID Consulting provides customers with public
policy establishment, industry competitiveness upgrading, development strategy
and planning, marketing strategy and research, HR management, IT programming
and management. CCID Consulting's customers range from industrial users in
electronics, telecommunications, energy, finance, automobile, to government
departments at all levels and diversified industrial parks. CCID Consulting
commits itself to becoming the No. 1 advisor for enterprise management, the No.
1 consultancy for government decisions and the No. 1 brand for informatization
consulting.
For more information, please contact:
Cynthia Liu
Coordinating Manager
CCID Consulting Co., Ltd.
Tel: +86-10-8855-9080
Email: liuyan@ccidconsulting.com
SOURCE CCID Consulting Co., Ltd.
