XM Satellite Plays for Keeps

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The heat is on in radio, and XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR) announced some new gadgets Wednesday that it surely hopes will feed the public's appetite for music on the go. Its two new portable radio receivers will not only play back its satellite stations, but also double as MP3 players.

Motley Fool Rule Breakers pick XM is releasing the Helix, marketed by Samsung, and the Inno, from Pioneer. Both part of the XM2Go line of products, they'll retail for around $400. Digital songs for download will come courtesy of XM's joint venture with music subscription service Napster (Nasdaq: NAPS).

The timing for this announcement is right, given Tuesday's launch of Motorola's (NYSE: MOT) new iRadio service. Motorola's offering, which lets users listen to ad-free radio via selected cell phones, is aimed at XM and satellite-radio rival Sirius (Nasdaq: SIRI), as well as Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and its iPod product line.

Hoping to lure more consumers through new gadgets is certainly not a bad move. If you've done a sweep of news sites today, you might have also run across headlines about how hot consumer electronics are at the moment. As the Consumer Electronics Show continues in Las Vegas this week, the Consumer Electronics Association has announced that wholesale sales of consumer electronics will grow 8% in 2006, with MP3 players forming an important piece of the market. On the other hand, it's not like this is a new concept. Sirius already has a portable satellite radio device with MP3 playback capabilities (although Sirius' version plays back prerecorded satellite content, not live broadcasts). Both companies are hoping their dual-purpose devices will lure customers away from ever-popular iPods; at the moment, it seems like a long shot.

These are pivotal days for portable music and related gadgetry. It's a forgone conclusion that all these companies are hoping to come up with the Next Big Thing in the burgeoning market for musical gadgets. XM investors will likely applaud the company's efforts to meld two hot forms of music in one device, but when it comes to MP3 players, Apple's iPod still seems hard to beat.

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Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.