Popularity of music phones means record sales for C-Media

Sound card manufacturer C-Media Electronics are predicting a healthy rise in sales for January, due to the huge popularity of music phones. C-Media partners with handset vendor Amoi Electronics and handset chip designer Spreadtrum Communications in producing these phones.

Amoi, Spreadtrum, and Kuro, a Taiwanese provider of music services, earlier this month made a joint announcement of the launch of two music phones in China. According to Eric Cheng, company chairman of C-Media, the first batch of these phones - 200,000 handsets - sold out within 3 weeks of their launch.

This huge success of music phones has led Amoi to announce another 8 new models, addressing all market segments, with prices ranging from 800 yuan (US$111) to 347 yuan (US$347).

Cheng expects that the buoyant music phone sales will lead to record January sales for C-Media, totalling NT$85-90 million (US$2.6-2.8 million) - a sequential sales growth of over 60%. NT$40-50 million of this will be generated by C-Media’s core business; the rest is royalty payments from Realtek Semiconductor.

C-Media is expecting sales this year to be further fueled by demand from other handset vendors in China wanting to produce music phones with similar features to Amoi’s.

Additionally, C-Media is working in partnership with Asustek Computer to introduce high-end sound cards in the second quarter of this year. Cheng says that this will bring a healthy growth in royalty payments from Asustek.