Samsung Debuts New MP3 Players

Samsung unveiled six new MP3 players that it hopes will further solidify its position in the portable music market on Thursday, and it hopes to triple its sales and gain market share on Apple's iPod.

The iPod holds a 70 percent market share worldwide, and an 80 percent market share within the United States. So far, most companies have been unsuccessful in finding a player that consumers have chosen in large numbers over the iPod, although devices like Creative's Zen Micro have shown some promise.

"We aim to sell more than 5 million MP3 players this year versus 1.7 million sold last year and will seek various strategic alliances with content providers such as Microsoft to boost sales," Samsung vice president Kim Suh-kyum told reporters.

The players released were of both the flash and hard-drive based variety, ranging from 256 megabytes to 30 gigabytes. Some of the new models contain color screens and radio tuners as well. However, analysts have warned over using a "swiss army knife" approach when producing MP3 players.

"Simple, elegant products that perform a few functions with easy-to-use interfaces have sold well in the marketplace, while the do-everything approach has failed," Shyam Nagrani, analyst with research firm iSuppli said on Tuesday.

The company says the new players should be available in the first half of this year.