Leontaris, a 33-year-old father of three, runs a mobile iPod repair services in New York City. He has plenty of work. Apple has sold 150 million iPods since it introduced its digital music player in 2001. The ubiquitous multimedia player has become a necessity and commodity and a golden opportunity for a small business such the one Leontaris is running.

Apple does some repairs under its warranty program – but not if the damage is the customer’s fault. "If you are Apple," says Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director for Jupiter Research, "your ideal scenario is to sell someone a new iPod, not repair an old one."

That’s fine with Leontaris. He makes a living attending to broken iPods that Apple won’t touch. And unlike those guys at the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store, the iPod Doctor makes house calls "Eighty percent of the repairs I can do on the spot," he boasts. Leontaris gets parts from old broken iPods or from Chinese market.

In US, large retail stores such Best Buy, Circuit City have their mobile services called GeekSquad or FireDog teams for large install and more costly projects. But there are no small repair service available. Considering the high cost of gasoline, I would say Leontaris can only viable in metropolitan distance.

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[Via CNN Money & Fortune Magazine]