Be Realistic

Hard drive-based music player market shares in September 2004
Vendor	Market share, %
Apple Computer	87.3
Hewlett-Packard	3.6
Rio	2.8
Creative	2.6
iRiver	1.5
Source: NPD Group

What is important about this information, is that HP, does not make any MP3 player (they co-sell Apple's Ipod) can be the 2nd in Market share.

Flash-based music player market shares in September 2004
Vendor	Market share, %
iRiver	18.8
Rio	18.6
Digital Way	15.8
RCA	8.8
Samsung	6.2
Source: NPD Group

And in this chart, it shows that Creative does not even show in the top 5 list of best selling flash based players.

Numbers do not lie, if you want to ignore my Mac fanboy rhetoric.

Tells us how realistic are Creative's chances.

source: ifacts

Random link : The iPod Shuffle dissected (From Engadget)

edit: This data are for the US market.