The combination of price and design will keep the iPod in the lead for years to come, according to one Wall Street analyst. After comparing competing MP3 players, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster said he believes that other companies simply cannot compete with Apple because they can’t match the iPod’s pricing or its “cool” factor.
“While non-iPod devices often have similar, if not broader, feature sets than the iPod, none of these devices have shown that they can compete in two key areas: 1) user interface and 2) ‘cool’ factor,” Munster wrote in a research note obtained by iLounge. “We believe that non-iPod devices must compete on price to gain adoption, but Apple has such massive relative shipment volume with the iPod that other MP3 player manufacturers are not able to replicate the economies of scale achieved by Apple. We believe this reality will allow Apple to sell iPods at the lowest prices in the market, thus retaining the iPod’s pole position for years.”
