PALO ALTO, CALIF. ? Lauren, 11, saunters nonchalantly past a Discovery Channel store and a Gymboree clothing store at the mall. Then suddenly, the girl’s eyes light up and she pulls her mother into an Apple Computer Inc. retail shop.

Together, they ogle the colorful selection of iPod Mini audio players. “I want this one,” Lauren says excitedly, pointing to a green one. Her older sister, 14, already has a blue one.

The pair walk out empty-handed, but later the girl’s mother, Mary Lynn Robinson of Menlo Park, hints, “Well, Christmas is coming.”

Indeed it is, and at least a dozen other music players are angling to steal sales from Apple’s wildly popular iPod line.

During the past several weeks, at least five companies have unveiled their latest iPod challengers — portable music players with hard disks that can store anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 songs.

There’s Dell Inc.’s new Pocket DJ, Virgin Electronics’ Player, Creative Labs Inc.’s Zen Micro, iRiver America Inc.’s H300 and Archos Inc.’s Gmini XS200.

“Everyone is trying to get a bite out of Apple’s piece of the pie,” said Susan Kevorkian, analyst at market research firm IDC.

But Apple always has more tricks up its sleeves.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company late last month introduced an iPod upgrade at an invite-only event featuring the rock band U2. The new device offers more capacity, a color display and a first-of-its kind digital compendium of U2 songs.

Since then, advertising featuring the band and iPod has been seemingly inescapable.

Apple was not the first to introduce a high-capacity hard-disk portable music player — Archos was. But Apple’s October 2001 launch of the sleek, white iPod defined the market.

Today, Apple rules the field, riding high with a gizmo that’s both fashion chic and a cultural icon.

The company sold a record 2 million units in its last quarter ending in September and has a lifetime total of more than 5.7 million. Brisk back-to-school sales pushed Apple’s share of the hard-disk player market in the United States to 92 percent in August, up from 82 percent the year before, according to NPD Group.

Worldwide, Apple enjoyed a 54 percent chunk of hard-disk unit shipments in 2003, maintaining a strong lead in a market predicted to grow to 25.5 million units in 2008, up from 2.7 million units shipped in 2003, according to IDC.

Analysts say Apple could continue to dominate but expect that its market share will erode amid the slew of new arrivals that are matching the iPod’s storage capacity, nearing it in style and ease of use, adding extra features like an FM tuner or voice recorder and, in some cases, undercutting Apple in price.

The competition also includes players introduced earlier this year from Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and MP3 player pioneer, Rio Audio.

For their part, Samsung, Sony and Virgin have brand and style cachet — not to mention deep pockets. Rio and Creative, smaller companies, have earned points in user-friendliness, while Dell and Archos are offering lower prices for the capacity.

“There’s no way they could sustain more than 70 percent share over time,” NPD analyst Stephen Baker said of Apple. “That’s very very difficult to do especially when the product is based on a commoditized component, the hard drive.”