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A few years ago, MP3 players were really popular and portable media players weren’t even really fully in the market yet. Over the past few years, many changes have taken place and video has now become a must have feature for many people. Bluetooth integration in MP3 players and portable media players would be nice, but that technology hasn’t caught on either. Ever since the iPod Touch came out, many portable media players began getting Wi-Fi as well, although it has not caught on with all devices, yet. Also coming with the iPod Touch was touchscreens. It seems that the average consumer wants good battery life, video playback, touchscreen, but above all, Wi-Fi.

In a recent study conducted by iSuppli, it seems that over the next 4 years, portable media players are set to grow steadily, but touchscreen and Bluetooth won’t be as prevalent in these devices as Wi-Fi will. If you take a look at the graph above, you can see that Wi-Fi is estimated to have strong growth, while the Bluetooth and touchscreen are not expected to grow nearly as fast or as much. As of now, only 4% of all portable media players and MP3 players have Bluetooth. I own a portable media player that has integrated Bluetooth, but the device itself doesn’t last nearly as long as it would on normal headphones, so I don’t use the Bluetooth much. iSuppli also predicts only a 4.3-percent growth in 2012, meaning a 197.1 million increase from 2007, and to 243.3 million devices in 2012. They also say that only expensive, high-end units will feature touchscreen. The interesting thing is that many portable media players that have Wi-Fi also have touchscreens. Personally, I agree with these results that I favor having Wi-Fi over Bluetooth or touchscreen. Do you agree?

Via [PMP Today]

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