Ford predicts the death of the CD

Posted on 25 Jul 2011 at 14:15

Ford has announced that it is making the move away from the in-car CD player in the face of declining sales of the compact disc format.

The company claims that the use of a CD as in-car entertainment is going the way of the cassette tape, and it's hard to argue with the company's figures: according to Ford, downloadable formats such as MP3 now account for 98 per cent of the market, having grown more than seven-fold while CD sales have dropped 35 per cent.

The Ford Focus is the company's first vehicle to dump the standard multi-disc changer in favour of USB and Bluetooth connectivity for an external device, and it plans to make this a theme across all of its new car models.

"In-car entertainment technology is moving digital more rapidly than almost any other element of the vehicle experience," claimed Ford's global trends and futuring manager Sheryl Connelly. "The in-car CD player – much like pay telephones – is destined to fade away in the face of exciting new technology."

The plan starts with the launch of Ford SYNC, which is expected to hit Europe in 2012, providing access to cloud-based audio streaming and music storage services from within the car. Ford claims that it expects around two million SYNC-equipped devices to be on the road in Europe by 2015.

The company will also standardise DAB radio across its range, but doesn't want anyone with a large CD collection to be worrying just yet. "Ford will obviously continue to offer CD players while there is demand," explained Ford's multimedia manager Ralf Brosig. "However, over time we expect customer preferences will lead us quickly into an all-digital approach to in-car audio entertainment."

Author: Gareth Halfacree

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