Music-Playing Cellphones Threaten iPod's Dominance

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Perhaps Apple shouldn’t get too excited about the launch of its iPhone, now just about two months away. The Times of London just published a piece that examines the rapid growth of music-playing cellphones and how this growth threatens not only the iPhone, but Apple’s main cash cow, the iPod. While Apple may have just sold its 100 millionth iPod last week, Sony Ericsson, for example, sold around 17 million Walkman-branded cellphones in the past year alone. Kinda makes the iPod’s march to 100 million seem sluggish. And with the price of storage cards—the main impediment to music-playing cellphone’s growth—ever dropping, the likes of Nokia and the aforementioned Sony Ericsson just may stand in the way of Apple’s dominance of the digital music market. That’s music to the record labels’ ears.

Phone rivals threaten to spoil iPod’s party [TimesOnline]