Audio News

The company with the second largest share of the American MP3 player market has made a major move and purchased a company called MusicGremlin known for their wireless MP3 players. The actual amount SanDisk paid for the company was not released. MusicGremlin was one of the pioneers and first companies to introduce directly downloading to MP3 players via Wi-Fi, and without the need of a computer intermediary. They also have a service where fellow MusicGremlin owners can share music with one another over the wireless connection, and this feature is similar to the sharing done with Microsoft’s Zune.

Clearly SanDisk must foremost want to incorporate this wireless technology and its features into their own MP3 players. In the extremely competitive MP3 player market, few players can distinguish themselves from the crowd, and any feature to make this happen is highly sought after. Of course, MusicGremlin is not an immediately recognisable brand nor were they incredibly successful in gaining a foothold in the MP3 player market. This could just be due to a lack of fair access and exposure, not deficient technology or products, and SanDisk does not face the same distribution type problems. As already stated, SanDisk are the second biggest players in the American MP3 player market with an 11% share, while Apple dominates with 71%, and Microsoft and Creative barely register with 4% and 2% respectively. Perhaps this acquisition will lead to SanDisk gaining some market share and catching up with Apple.