PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, July 6, 2000 – According to leading marketing information provider NPD INTELECT Market Tracking, year-to-date* sales of portable music players are up 11% from 1999. With consumers wanting to take music everywhere with them, summer 2000 comes with an abundance of choices. NPD INTELECT reports most buyers now choose digital formats, although the analog market is far from dead.

Approximately two out of three portable music players sold this year at retail were digital, according to NPD INTELECT. Personal CD players are the fastest growing category, with year-to-date sales up 41% over 1999. The MiniDisc player is next, increasing 37% from last year. CD boombox sales increased by 16%. The up-and-coming MP3 player is growing fast, but has yet to challenge its competition.

As more and more consumers go digital, analog portable music players, such as the headset stereo and the radio cassette player, are losing market share and sales. They captured 34% of this year’s portable music player market, down from 44% a year ago. Headset stereo sales have decreased 7%; radio cassette player sales are down 30%.

Finally, the transition to digital isn’t limited to music players, but is spreading quickly to the home recorder market. Now that consumers are more comfortable with CDs and the dual-deck approach to home recording, CD recorders are rapidly gaining popularity. The MiniDisc recorder gives consumers the option of recording digitally at home or on the go. The MP3 recorder takes it a step further by replacing tapes and discs with tiny memory cards or built-in memory with no removable media at all.

With all digital formats doing fairly well, consumers may wonder which one will dominate. According to NPD INTELECT Director of Audio and Video Tracking Jim Hirschberg, "There is no reason why three digital formats can’t coexist at the same time. Back in the 1970s three analog formats (open reel, cassette, and 8-track) all existed at the same time before cassette eventually won out. We expect to see several digital formats find their own audiences."