Buzz Watch: Microsoft Claims One Million Zunes Sold

Authored by Jay Baage on May 28, 2007 - 10:38am.

According to Robbie Bach, Microsoft's president of the Entertainment and Devices Division, Zune has already met the goal of 1.000.000 players sold, set at launch for the end of June. This was revealed by Bach in an interview with San Francisco Cronicle on Monday. So, does this mean that the Zune a success? Not by a long shot. One million seems like a lot, but not compared to that Apple in Q4 of last year alone sold 14 million iPods. However, Microsoft is by no means giving up trying to compete with Apple when it comes to the portable music market. The interview is well worth a read.

"Question: Can you talk a little bit about the Zune overall? Will we see next-generation Zunes coming out, particularly flash-based players?

Bach: We're still about nine months into having Zune in the marketplace. We're very pleased with the progress. 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. It's not an overwhelming start. I'm not going to pretend it's some gigantic move. As we look to the future, you're certainly going to see us continue to invest in that category. We don't enter things like that lightly. There will be new things down the path (in the fall). We just came out with a special edition pink Zune and a watermelon-colored Zune, which are the personal favorites with my kids."

Joakim Baage

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Comments

They should give them away

Submitted by Jadam Kahn (not verified) on May 28, 2007 - 6:01pm.

I live in Chicago, the third largest city in the US. I often take public transportation and am always interested in seeing what devices people are using in the public space. Since its launch I have yet to see a single person with a zune (though ipods are everywhere). The latest zune ads are still pushing the social aspect of the player as a key differentiator. So if the key reason to purchase a zune is to connect with other zune users, and you never come into contact with another zune user (let alone someone who you would actually want to share music with), why on earth would someone want to get a zune? The only way this strategy will work is if MS gives away zunes - lots and lots of zunes. Only by giving them to tastemaker/influencer types and making the product visibly prominent in people's everyday life will MS may have a shot of actually selling people on the social aspect of the player. Rocketsurgeon's Music 2.0 Blog