Tech News

Zune zooms past 1 million sales

By Stevie Smith May 29, 2007, 15:05 GMT

In light of Apple’s continuing iPod-led dominance in the digital music player arena, the belated arrival of Microsoft’s Zune multimedia device was met with, a perhaps predictable, ‘too little too late’ reception by the critics along with a less than feverish adoption rate by consumers. That said, the much-maligned Zune has this week surpassed Microsoft’s own expectations by ably breaking the 1 million sales mark just prior to the company’s initial June prediction.Furthermore, according to Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, this million-strong landmark also represents the Zune successfully capturing some 10 percent of the total market share. However, despite those claims, the American software giant – which also has the market-leading Xbox 360 videogames console attributed to its Entertainment and Devices division – has a considerable mountain to scale should conquering the iPod be its ultimate objective, especially as Apple holds some 74 percent of the market.“We're still about nine months into having Zune in the marketplace. We're very pleased with the progress,” commented Bach during an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. “We've sold a little over a million Zunes. In the category we're in, the hard-disk-based category, we've got about 10 percent market share. It's a good start.”During the course of the interview, Bach was quizzed on a wide variety of technology subjects, over the course of which he revealed that a new Zune fabrication facility is being constructed in China for the production of second-gen HDD Zunes and also a new flash-memory version. The Microsoft exec also conceded that the hugely anticipated iPod-enabled iPhone was an intriguing entrant to the market, while also intonating that the American software giant has no current plans to introduce its own Zune phone by way of response.With Bach also enthusing about the appeal and current success of the coloured Zune models (namely the pink and watermelon flavours), he also went on to state that increased Wi-Fi functionality for the Zune – in the face of the Wi-Fi superiority of Sandisk’s popular Sansa Connect player – would be a simple case of a quick piece of software writing, if the company should decide to implement such changes.While the 1 million milestone has been reached in fairly good time by Microsoft’s Zune, the likelihood of iPod sales (ranked in the tens of millions per year) flagging in the immediate future is extremely low, and any feature-filled, flash-built, Wi-Fi- boasting second-generation Zune is unlikely to leave anything other than a grooved scratch on Apple’s otherwise pristine performance.

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dallas MayMay 29th, 2007 - 15:59:27

That is not what the interview said!

If you listen to the actual interview, the person said that Microsoft WILL SELL ONE MILLION ZUNES IN JUNE!
They have not done it yet. And if you look at this sunday's Circuit City ad in the paper you will see how they sold them. CC is advertising the Zune for only $199. That means that MS has flooded the sales channels with their Zunes. There is a vast difference in how many Zunes have sold to consumers and how many have been sold to retailers.

Try this. Ask everyone you know how many people they know use a Zune. Odds are that no one will be able to think of anyone. Now ask those same people how many people own an iPod. Your tally will climb faster than you can make marks on a paper.

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JoeyMay 29th, 2007 - 16:39:57

I bought one early on but returned it. The software was too hard to install and integrate.

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