Smartphones and tablet computers dominated the holiday gift season, so more and more people will now have mobile gadgets that give them access to their music. Of course Apple was one of the winners, as the iPhone and the iPad were huge hits. Also, younger kids expect gifts like the iPod Touch if they can’t get the more expensive items.
Then you have the emergence of Amazon with the Kindle Fire. It didn’t get the best reviews, but at $199 it was an incredibly popular gift this year. The good thing for Amazon is that it brought a host of new people over to their ecosystem to sell them music, books, movies and TV shows. This makes them a real competitor to Apple and the iTunes store.
Amazon has tons of older customers who have been buying eBooks for years through older Kindles. Not they can market music and games to them as well. This will also drive more online gaming, even with older users who like things like bingo and poker over games kids like. New smartphones and tablets like the Kindle Fire will make it easier for them to play bingo online, or to download their favorite songs.
The landscape out there for digital content and entertainment just keeps changing. The music industry now has Pandora and Spotify competing with iTunes. It will be interesting to see how iTunes holds up with these new trends and without Steve Jobs.
