Today, Sony released a new lineup of cheaper Walkman portable music
players in another attempt to gain more sales, since the iPod is the
leader in mp3 sales currently. The prices of the new Walkman will be
under US$200.00 and will come with a 256-megabyte flash memory chip.

via Yahoo! News:

Until now, the complaint was that Sony products sold at a major
premium,” said Gregory Kukolj, general manager of the personal audio
group in Europe.

Sony invented the Walkman cassette player 26 years ago and dominated the
personal audio market for two decades. But it has watched that lead slip
away due to the runaway success of the iPod and growing competition from
Asian manufacturers.

Sony’s new flash memory players are equipped with chips capable of
storing 256 megabytes, 512 megabytes or one gigabyte of data. The most
expensive one-gigabyte model will go for about 240 euros and can store
the equivalent of 45 compact discs.

Kukolj conceded that Sony’s new Walkmans would still be more expensive
than some brands on the market as the cheapest players can be had for
less than 50 euros. But he said the new Walkmans would win over
customers with superior features and designs.

Apple’s recently launched iPod Shuffle, its first flash memory player
after initial hard-disk based iPods, sells for 99 euros, but unlike
Sony’s players, it has has no display.

Sony said some of the new models would come equipped with organic
electroluminescence (OLED) displays while some would be able to generate
three hours of playback time with just three minutes of recharging.
“The digital player market is still in its early stages. In the European
Union (news - web sites) alone the personal audio market is 20 to 22
million devices a year. More than 10 million of those are CD portable
players… there is a huge opportunity,” Kukolj said.

Sony’s new players will be launched around the world starting later this
month. They will be on show at the CeBIT electronic trade fair in
Hanover, Germany, this week.