Nokia thinks stand alone MP3 players will become extinct

"I don’t see any reason for standalone MP3 players to exist in the long-term. There’s no reason for standalone non-connected MP3 players. You have a worse experience."

That’s what Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Tommi Mustonen said earlier this afternoon, admittedly in answer to a direct question from a journalist on whether Nokia is predicting the death of the standalone MP3 player. Gotta love those leading questions.

He did mention Nokia’s policy of putting a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the N-Series handsets so that people can use their normal headphones – which other manufacturers haven’t quite got round to doing yet – and also talked figures, saying that Nokia has effectively sold more than 100 million MP3 players in 2005 and 2006.

Someone did ask the question of whether all the people who buy these MP3-capable phones are actually using them to play music, and Mustonen replied that in a study of Series 60 users, 64% are using their phones to listen to music several times a week or more.

Other stuff from this session: Nokia is keen to get USB 2.0 into its music handsets, especially the ones with larger hard drives inside, to make transferring a stack of tunes across quicker.

Source: Tech Digest

Agreed, one less device to carry in my pocket is always a good thing. We have to see what Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) does however when it chooses to integrate phone capabilities into it’s products.