pmp

I was having a conversation with my coworker TJ the other day about consumer electronics. We both agreed that, for the most part, we like to have our phone, a camera, and an MP3 player separate instead of a 3-in-1 device. We agreed this was probably the case because we’re afraid of losing all of our music, photos, and contacts all in one incident, should something happen to our multi-gadget. Today, a market research firm claims that my colleague and I may be in the minority.

MultiMedia Intelligence reported that over 500 million music phones were sold in 2007, “outnumbering shipments of personal media players like the iPod by almost 300 million units.” MultiMedia Intelligence projects that by 2011 more than half of all the mobile phones sold will be considered a music phone.

Maybe I jumped to conclusions too quickly, though. MultiMedia Intelligence actually labels any phone a “music phone,” if it has both music-codec functionality and a memory slot. So, technically, that means most of the latest smart phones also fall into this category, too. Something tells me all those businesspeople that are issued BlackBerrys for work aren’t listening to the latest Gnarls Barkley album at the gym. That’s what personal media players are for, right?