MPIO or Mpio (

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The l ...

: 엠피오) was a

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

n consumer electronics brand and company. Established in 1998 by Woo Jung-Ku, it was one of Korea's early manufacturers of

MP3 player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored ...

s and was known for producing

portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide ...

digital audio players, media players and

CD player A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audio ...

s capable of decoding

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

data files on CDs. Previously, the company was known as DigitalWay Co., Ltd.

History

The company, originally as DigitalWay, was created as an OEM developer for large corporations - its first client was

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

and the first product from their contract, a Samsung-branded MP3 player, debuted at the 1999

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event t ...

. In 2000, the company launched its own brand, Mpio, which eventually would become the name of the company. By 2002 it held 20% of the worldwide DAP market, including 15% in Europe and North America and 30% in Japan. The vast majority of its sales came from its own Mpio brand rather than through contracts of other firms. Mpio was noticeably better known outside of South Korea itself. In Japan, Mpio players were sold by Adtec Co., Ltd., a fully owned subsidiary of DigitalWay. In 2005, Mpio Japan Co., Ltd. was formed as a successor business. In September 2004 DigitalWay merged with a company called Yes Com Co., Ltd. and registered on the

KOSDAQ KOSDAQ (acronym of Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations, Korean: 코스닥) is a trading board of Korea Exchange (KRX) in South Korea established in 1996. Initially set up by Korea Financial Investment Association as an independent ...

exchange. MPIO became the name of the new company. Mpio's first jukebox player was the HD-100 in 2004 with a 20 GB hard disk, aiming to capture sales away from the

iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes wa ...

and iriver H300 series. Half of its sales that year were from North America. However, its situation in the market deteriorated in 2005. Unlike iriver which could depend on domestic sales for survival, 90% of Mpio's revenue came from outside South Korea. The company posted a net loss of 21 billion won ($21.7 million) in 2005. In April 2006, founder and CEO Woo Jung-ku sold 8% out of 15% of his personal shares in the company to SW Net, a company specialising in jewellery. Then, Jung-Ku now as an employee, was dismissed from the company and was replaced by SW NET's president Kang Shin-woo. On November 10, 2006, Shin-woo and other members of the company's board of directors were accused in Korean media of

embezzlement Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...

, as much as 9.8 billion won. This was followed by resignations and the bankruptcy of one of its subsidiaries. Chung Myung-an held a temporary CEO position until it was filled by Kim Jeong-ho. The company announced its entry in the biodiesel business and entered the development of ozone-free

halogen light bulb A halogen lamp (also called tungsten halogen, quartz-halogen, and quartz iodine lamp) is an incandescent lamp consisting of a tungsten filament sealed in a compact transparent envelope that is filled with a mixture of an inert gas and a small ...

development. In August 2007, MPIO announced that CEO Jeong-ho embezzled 9 million won, 134% of MPIO's equity capital. In 2008 the company had renamed itself Innoblue Co., no longer in the MP3 business, and it is now involved mainly in pollution reduction equipment.

Products

Product list of MPIO:

MP3 players

;2000 *MP10, Mpio's first player originally as OEM then under its own brand, rectangular shaped *DMU10, rectangular shaped *DMV10, rectangular shaped *EX-MP, square shaped *DMY10, square shaped *DMJ10, square shaped ;2001 *DMG, square shaped playe, 32/64/128 MB memory, with a SmartMedia slot plus built-in microphone for recording and WMA playback support. Also sold as the Odyssey 200 and 300 by licensee e.Digital. *DMB, rectangle shaped player, 32/64/128 MB memory, with a

SmartMedia SmartMedia is an obsolete flash memory, flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. The format mostly saw application in the early 2000s in digital cameras and audio production. SmartMedia m ...

slot for extra 128 MB expansion ;2002 *DMG Plus, update of DMG *DMB Plus, update of DMB with additional FM radio recording and a line-in *DME, smaller variant of DMG/DMB. Also sold as the Odyssey 100 by licensee e.Digital. *DMK, small keychain style player, 64/128 MB ;2003 *FD100, square shaped player that was popular *FL100, rectangular player that was popular *FY100, "sporty" player *HD100, Mpio's first jukebox and hard drive player, 20 GB memory ;2004 *FY200, white coloured player that continued the DMK's design, a successful model. *FY300, primitive designed with USB stick. Also sold under the name Stormblue Xuke MP-500. *FL200, medallion style. Also sold under the name Beadsounds EMP-Z. *FG100 *FL300, update of FL200, medallion style *FY400, update of FY300. *HD300, jukebox, 20/40 GB memory. *HD200, microdrive player, 5 GB. ;2005 *FG200 (One), high-end flash player with colour display *FY600, small budget-oriented player *FY500/FY500SE, small budget-oriented player *FL350, medallion update of FL300 *PD100, player that can also pick up

DAB radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. Types In digital broadcasting syst ...

and record from it alongside FM *i-Bulldog, budget sub-brand ;2006 *HD400 (SOLID), microdrive player, 8 GB. *FL400 (QUARTZ), medallion player *FY700, budget player *FY800, 1/2/4 GB flash player with

SD card Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

slot for expansion *FL500, medallion style player ;2007 *MG100, 9.2 mm thick player *ML100, renamed from FY900 *ML300 *MG300, 2/4/8 GB PMP ;2008 *FY1000, 2/4/8 GB PMP *FY500SE *PD100

MP3 CD players

*CMG *CL100 *CL200

Others

*Playit X3 (HRP250 / HRP160), Home Media Player *HS100 / HS200, USB storage devices *DC100, digital camera (for use with DMG and DMB music players)

References

{{reflist

External links

M-Pio HomepageM-Pio USA Homepage (Digital Way Inc.)M-Pio Europe Homepage (M-Pio Peros GmbH)M-Pio China Homepage (Digital Way Shanghai Co, Ltd)
Portable media players Portable audio player manufacturers Audio equipment manufacturers of South Korea South Korean brands Consumer electronics brands Manufacturing companies established in 1998