Sony's Walkman digital music player outsold Apple's iPod in Japan last week
for the first time in more than four years, according to electronics research
firm BCN.
Sony, whose Walkman cassette players pioneered the portable-music industry in
the late 1970s, gained market share after introducing models including the W
series of cordless players that sell for under $US108.
Sony has gained customers seeking less expensive products and those seeking
high quality by broadening its lineup,” Kazuharu Miura, an analyst with Daiwa
Institute of Research, said by telephone.
“But you can't really say Sony regained its competitiveness against Apple
unless it improves its market share in the U.S. and Europe.”
Using mobiles for just calls and texting is a thing of the past, as a third
of Australians now check emails on their handsets and more than 70 per cent
access mobile entertainment and information services.
In last year's survey, just 7 per cent of respondents accessed social
networking sites from their handsets, but this figure has jumped this year to 32
per cent, with half of those accessing the sites daily.
WHEN Sarah Morgan, a slenderly framed 10-year-old, came home from
primary school with a McDonald's food voucher and a size 16 T-shirt that she had
won in a basketball competition, her mother, a health campaigner, was livid.
Martin says the standards released by the Australian Communications and Media
Authority fail to regulate junk-food promotions on TV or thwart the
sophisticated techniques employed by advertisers to create ''pester power'' -
when children continually ask their parents for something. By restricting
advertising only during low-rating children's programs, Martin says, the
authority has ignored evidence that justifies action which could prevent up to
one in three children from becoming obese.
There are 105 mobiles for every 100 people, making Australia one of the most
saturated markets in the world behind South Korea, with 114 mobile phones for
every 100 people.
An ACMA study last year found the decline of fixed lines has been led by
younger consumers. About 91 per cent of retirees said their main form of
communication was the fixed-line phone, while 70 per cent of 18-to-31 year-olds
consider mobile phones as their main form of communication.
