Sony, a well-known name to almost everyone interested in electronics, has announced a new audio player that plans to take market shares away from Apple’s recently introduced Shuffle.

Sony’s latest line of MP3 players will support 256MB, 512MB and 1GB of storage options as opposed to only 512MB and 1GB storage on Apple’s Shuffle. The new players will roll out starting this April (the company did not comment on the final price of the units, but they are expected to be slightly expensive than the Shuffle).

Sony will provide users with software to manage their play lists and songs. The software will also allow users to directly interlink with the company’s "Connect" music library for direct downloads, a service much similar to Apple’s iTunes. The MP3 player will have radio tuner capabilities and features an OLED display. The new player uses flash memory and a single AAA battery (up to 50 hours of battery life) for portability factors.

The electronics giant have plans to bring a hard drive based player to compete against Apple’s iPod by the end of 2005.

Unfortunately for Apple, Sony’s announcement dropped the company’s shares by 5.2 percent to $40.53 per share. Sony’s stocks, however, showed strength as they moved up the charts by 4.35 percent to $41.02.