Update: Sim also rather enigmatically mentioned "wireless headphones that use a new magnetic induction technology." engadget has pictures of these, which are powered magnetic induction technology from Aura Communications. (who on their front page seem to have a very small thumbnail of headphones + players which look very much like those in the engadget shots.) We definitely prefer etymotics.
In todays Straits Times (Reg'n req.) Sim Wong Hoo, the Creative CEO, is reported as stating that demand has been 'more than 10 times our expectations', and 'the fastest ramp-up' for his line of MP3 players. The first statment is probably a bit of fanciful hyperbole, given that the aim of Creative remains the capture of 40 percent of the global market, similar to when he "declared war" against Apple earlier this year.
Update: Sim also rather enigmatically mentioned "wireless headphones that use a new magnetic induction technology." engadget has pictures of these, which are powered magnetic induction technology from Aura Communications. (who on their front page seem to have a very small thumbnail of headphones + players which look very much like those in the engadget shots.) We definitely prefer etymotics.
In todays Straits Times (Reg'n req.) Sim Wong Hoo, the Creative CEO, is reported as stating that demand has been 'more than 10 times our expectations', and 'the fastest ramp-up' for his line of MP3 players. The first statment is probably a bit of fanciful hyperbole, given that the aim of Creative remains the capture of 40 percent of the global market, similar to when he "declared war" against Apple earlier this year.
Slightly more interesting is his later assertion that the Zen has a global market share of about 25% of hard-drive based digital music players; this is more than double the figure of 10% reported in November 2004, but no iPod sales numbers have been released yet for Q4, so this is also at yet unconfirmed.
Sim also commented that Creative now easily holds 80% of this market in Singapore. This is very surprising, first because Singapore sales of iPods do not appear to have been made public, second if this was actually true it should be widely publicized worldwide as a micocosm of Creative's success, and third the promotions in Singapore during the holiday season have been more iPod based: While creative has advertised more in the local papers, local firms like Singtel used the iPod mini instead of the Zen in their christmas promotions. (Signing up for 2 years of DSL service netted you an iPod Mini; the promotion is over.)
Finally, Bill Gates was quoted saying: "This Christmas, we had people like Creative with the Zen Micro and Rio Carbon, those devices sold very well. In fact, they are sold out." While Bill Gates seems to have definitely made this comment, it is really uncertain if he actually meant the Zen Micro; his following statement was "This brings the photo capability in, and it's a very attractively priced device." The first comment therefore seems to refer instead to the Creative Zen PMC, which actually does have photo capability and is is attractively priced.
In other Zen news, Creative is now running another competition where the prize is a Zen Micro. You play a mini-game then submit your score. Most of the world is eligible, but realise that there was a small bug where a zen which beeps twice in a row sometimes does not display the beep animation. Good luck!
Engadget is also reporting that Creative is going to release Zen Micro models with 1GB, 4GB and 6GB capacities.
