Applying Porter’s 5 Forces model to iPod and Walkman

For iPod, buyer power is still really low because it’s still Apple who is bringing iPods into the market. Whereas, buyer power for Walkman is really high because at this time I think there are no companies who can boast that they are the trendsetter when it comes to producing Walkmans. Sony was prominent, but then again that was a long while back. Nowadays, more and more companies are concentrating on compact portable mp3 players rather than Walkman.

For iPod, threat of new entrants is low whereas threat of new entrants is high for Walkmans. There are significant entry barriers for a new company to come up and challenge iPods. The sort of facilities that Apple has pampered its customers with its iPods would be really hard for a new product to mimic and pose a threat against Apple. For Walkman, almost any other company can enter into the market without confronting any barriers and can excel if they want to.