Sales show SanDisk's SD-not-CD player a hit with punters

CES Though its still too early to say if SanDisk's SlotMusic idea has been barking up the wrong tree or not a few interesting details cropped up at its CES launch event this week.

During the time since its release, the SlotMusic version of Rihanna's ludicrously successful album Good Girl Gone Bad has accounted for six per cent of the album's total US sales.

Country singer Tim McGraw, who also shifts a fair few albums in the US, saw ten per cent of the sales of his recent Greatest Hits 3 compilation come from the SlotMusic format.

Anecdotal data from some stores suggests that SlotMusic releases have accounted for up to 25 per cent of on-site sales on some albums, SanDisk claimed - though it admitted that other albums' SlotMusic percentage has been as low as a one per cent.

The boys and girls at SanDisk are no doubt burning the midnight oil crunching the relevant numbers and demographics to ensure future releases play to the format's strength. But, all in all, these are not bad numbers for a format many said was doomed to failure from the outset. ®

SlotMusic hands-on preview