Considering the promotional hype and heavy marketing that went into this launch, I’d have been surprised if the Zune hadn’t sold relatively well. I still maintain that it will never beat out the iPod in its current iteration.
Market research firm NPD Group said sales of the Microsoft player edged out devices from previous second-place holder SanDisk Corp. in the week ended Nov. 18. But Zune was a distant second to Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod, and its second-place showing came amid widespread media attention and launch hype.
NPD said Zune won 9 percent of the U.S. market, measured by unit sales, and 13 percent of dollar volume in its first week in stores. Microsoft released the device Nov. 14.
In the same week, the iPod represented 63 percent of unit sales and 72.5 percent of dollar volume, the research firm said.
Having said that, if Microsoft gets their act together on the Zune it may capture as much as a third of the market eventually.
10
The Zune DOES NOT have any DRM-adding features. You can only share the DRM-laden songs you download from the Zune Marketplace.
Plus, that could hardly be considered a “feature”.
Interesting that “Zune” vs “iPod” is discussed, when there is basically one size of Zune, but 3 different sizes of iPod.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
The only people Zune can attract are the ones interested in an “iPod”.
People interested in a Shuffle or Nano could give a fig about “Zune vs iPod”, since M$ has no product in that space.
22,
Good point, Mike. The iPod shuffle is a great little device.