April 25, 2007 6:07 PM PDT
Zune numbers holding steady
Sales numbers are out for March retail sales of hard-drive based music players, and Microsoft's Zune is holding steady in its No. 2 market position. According to numbers from NPD, the Zune's share of the market was 9.1 percent, a slight increase from its 8.8 percent share in February.
The numbers come about a month after Microsoft released a minor update to the Zune software aimed at fixing several issues, including one that was causing some users to hear skipping when playing back purchased songs.
Microsoft also announced Wednesday that it will launch a new print and broadcast ad campaign in May.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
direct sales from Apple of the iPod?
About 1.7%.
So much for accurate reporting. Microsoft buys a lot of ad space
with you guys, don't they?
Secondly, Mr. Musil pointed out clearly that sales numbers were out for "March RETAIL sales". Now customarily, if you will excuse the quick commerce lesson, the RETAILER buys goods in bulk from the manufacturer and sells in smaller quantities to the consumer. Though Apple is selling small quantities as you pointed out, that situation does not apply ipso facto. Long story short, the figures presented still stand.
And FWIW I think I'm right in saying that NDP figures do not inlude sales from Apple's online store or other major outlets of iPods so the 9.1% share is probably inflated anyway...
I thought Sandisk was #2 anyway? Check out amazon's MP3 top sellers list, Zune is #16
IMO the zune has a better interface, sounds better and has the potential to be something.
The only issue I see with the zune was the skipping issue (which has been resolved)and the size is bigger then IPOD but it's made to view movies with the bigger screen.
Seriousily, if there is one positive story on here its because Microsoft is paying for it meanwhile on practically every article on the right hand side the mac vs pc commercial is playing.
It would be nice if people could judge a product rather then the company behind it.
Seeing how the ipod's numbers seem not to have changed either, since the introduction of the Zune, it seems that the Zune is indeed eating into the smaller players, like Creative and Sandisk. Kind of rough being a MS partner right now. Probably explains why Sandisk is partnering with Real and Yahoo, instead of MS.
web site.
So, among retail outlets (excluding Apple stores) that sell .mp3
players, 9.1% of the players sold at retail were Zunes?
A large chunk of Apple's iPod sales are through Apple's web site
and the Apple stores - and NPD's numbers don't count either of
these outlets.
In other words, about 9.1% of the _hard drive-based_ players
sold at Best Buy, CompUSA, and Circuit City were Zunes. I'd love
to see concrete retail sales numbers - this has to be less than 1%
of the total market for .mp3 players.
What's next, an article about how Vista is selling like hotcakes?
It's well known that NPD numbers do not include sells from the Apple store, Walmart, or Amazon, But the 9% only includes hard drive based players.
Last time I checked, flash based MP3 players make up about 60% of the market.
players and gaming consoles. Everyday his store sells iPods or
players made by Creative, but the Zune hardly ever moves on the
sales floor! He says he's amazed if even one or two Zune players
sell in a month!
- The Numbers Are Fabricated
- by Sumatra-Bosch May 22, 2007 10:31 PM PDT
- The only people who buy Zunes are, research has proven, escaped mental patients and confused grandparents.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(15 Comments)Almost 30 have been sold this way. The rest are in warehouses and being used by night cleaning crews as pucks in floor hockey games. (The most popular way to prepare them is to wrap them in Teflon tape.)
They know no one would notice them missing.
RSB