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Converged Devices Will Never Have The Depth of Their Standalone Counterparts

According to a report in the UK’s Sunday Times, music phones (ie cellular phones that also play mp3 music files), could spell death for iPod sales. What has brought them to this conclusion? Sales of the Sony Ericsson Walkman line of music phones. The company reported, last Friday, that they have sold 17 million Walkman phones last year, and has sold more than 20 million since they were first introduced just over 18 months ago - a sales rate of that is far superior to the first 18 months of iPod sales. In total, Sony Ericsson has sold just over 43 million music phones, but this is nothing compared to music phone king Nokia.

Nokia Sold 70 million Music Phones Last Year

Even with those massive numbers, Nokia and Sony Ericsson music phones will not kill the iPod. The reasoning behind this is two fold:

1. Converged devices, like music phones, will never have the depth of features, or the ease of use of an iPod. They will always be limited in what they can do as a music player, because they attempt to do to many other “things”.The iPod is just so easy to use and intuitive. The same can not be said for music phones.
2. The iPod has become a fashion and status symbol. People want (and buy) an iPod because they want in on the “cool” factor. They want to be part of the club. The same can not be said about music phones. Because there are so many, that are so similar, there is no real cult-like following behind anyone device as there is with the iPod. Cult followings that bredd customer evangelists will carry a brand/product (and keep a company) going for a long time.

Not that Nokia and Sony Ericsson will not try their hardest to deflate the iPod’s sales, in fact the competition might be good for all three companies, the fact remains that until a company produces a device that is as sleek, stylish, easy to use, and intuitive, as the iPod, no one single device, or category of devices, will knock it from it’s purch.