Eli Harari, CEO of Sandisk (the world’s number 2 PMP maker) recently admitted what’s been obvious for years: Apple dominates the PMP market in the US so thoroughly that all other products are relegated to niche status.

Harari is in a unique position, in that while his company does compete with the iPod line, they’re not vulnerable in the same way your Creatives, irivers, and Cowons of the world are. Flash memory chips, not PMPs, are Sandisk’s primary product, so they can get away with this kind of admission of defeat (or reality). And in fact, while Samsung, not Sandisk, is Apple’s main supplier of flash chips, Sandisk still reaps a ton of money from Apple courtesy of licensing fees on its many inventions. Still, it’s refreshing (bracing, even) to hear such forthrightness from a CEO. [CNN]