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Finally, Some Sales Numbers
The Washington Post rounds up the state of HD, and reveals some sales: The HD Digital Radio Alliance, the broadcasters group promoting the new standard (and a rather bland set of not-competitive-in-each-market secondary FM broadcasts) said that about 200,000 HD Radios were sold in 2006 and 1.5m are expected to sell this year. I find that rather hard to believe given cost, availability, and anecdotal reports from retailers and manufacturers. Still, alliance has little reason to inflate this figure, because if they have, other retail sales tracking will eventually reveal that.
HD Radio can't reach a mass audience until it's built into mobile devices and found as a cheap or default feature in factory-installed mid-range cars.