Small is beautiful - all the more so when it comes in a rainbow of colours. So the new iPod mini is expected to fly off the shelves when it launches in Britain today.
But Apple, the creator of the portable digital music player, cannot afford to be complacent: more and more competitors are entering the market, offering cheaper models with additional features such as FM radio tuners.
Within a couple of years, mobile phone companies also hope to launch handsets which can store and play thousands of songs.
Apple is counting on replicating the American success of the iPod mini across the rest of the world. It proved such a success when it was launched in the United States earlier this year that customers queued around the block to get their hands on them.
Smaller and cheaper than its sibling - the iPod mini is roughly the size of a card holder rather than a cigarette box, and costs £179 not £219 - it has proved more appealing to teenagers and women, opening up a new market to the company.
Apple has sold 3m iPods worldwide and has streamlined the design and cut the price to ensure that they are still attractive when the minis go on sale.
"The demand is absolutely incredible," said Hamish Thompson, a spokesman for the high-street electrical chain Dixons.
"As soon as you get them, they fly off the shelves. Our sales of digital music players are up five-fold year on year."
Apple warned last week that demand for the smaller model would outstrip supply in Europe too, and canny music fans have already placed their orders and specified which of the five colours they want: pink, silver, gold, blue or green.
While scarcity may increase the aura of cool around the product, it could also backfire for Apple. It currently controls about 70% of the international market, but Mr Thompson said many customers seemed happy to switch to other models when iPods were not available.
But Steve Levine, a producer for the Clash and the Beach Boys and the author of a forthcoming book, The Art of Downloading Music, said that nothing could beat the iPod's phenomenal storage capacity - it can hold up to 10,000 songs - and its overall quality.
"It has that iconic image now: it's the Porsche of portable music," he said.
"I think the others are also-rans, because they just don't have that cachet. Every kid wants an iPod, not an imitator; it's got a vibe about it.
"Others may have more battery power, but you don't really want to listen for more than eight hours at a time anyway.
"It's small, it's convenient and I can use it as a consumer listening to my personal record collection or as a producer, because the database is phenomenal."
An iPod mini can store 1,000 tracks.
The couture designer Karl Lagerfeld is said to have bought dozens so that he could load thousands of albums on to them, raising the question of when he actually manages to listen to the music.