I think everyone is hip to the fact that Apple Computer's iPod portable digital audio players pretty much dominate the market, but you might be surprised to discover how handily the company's iPod shuffle player--introduced just this year--has already trounced all its competition. Despite lacking features common to other flash-based players--including a screen, an FM tuner, and a voice recorder--Apple's 512MB iPod shuffle commands 34.4 percent of the flash-based MP3 player market, and its 1GB sibling comes in second place with 11.9 percent. After that, it's just a bunch of wannabes scrambling for whatever is left over: The 256MB Sandisk SDMX is in third place with 4.9 percent of the market, the 512MB Sandisk SDMX is in fourth with 4 percent, and the 256MB Rio Forge Sport comes in fifth with 2.9 percent of the market. After that, a variety of Sandisk, Samsung, RCA, and Creative Labs products round out the top 10, each managing less than a meager 2 percent of the market. Put another way, Apple's iPod shuffle players combine for almost 50 percent of the entire flash market. Simply incredible
