"Apple reported stellar sales of its iPod music player for the latest quarter, which ended Sept. 25 and saw just over 2 million of the diminutive hard-drive based devices fly off the shelves. That's music to the ears of PortalPlayer, the Santa Clara (Calif.) company that designs the integrated circuits and software powering both the iPod classic and the iPod mini," reports Business Week Online.
The company is going for an IPO. However, "PortalPlayer admits that 89% of its revenues came from Inventech, the third-party manufacturer building iPods for Apple in China," and it's still not making a profit.
"PortalPlayer does supply chip designs to iPod competitors, including Aiwa, Philips, RCA, Rio, and Samsung. But until those customers get more traction in the digital music-player market, PortalPlayer will lack customer diversity and remain exposed to Apple's decisions."
