MPIO or Mpio (Hangul: 엠피오) was a South Korean consumer electronics brand and company. Established in 1998 by Woo Jung-Ku, it was one of Korea's early manufacturers of MP3 players and was known for producing portable digital audio players, media players and CD players capable of decoding MP3 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 and the first product from their contract, a Samsung-branded MP3 player, debuted at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show. 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.[2][3]
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.