Microsoft Takes Early MP3 Silver

New numbers from a market research firm indicate that Microsoft (MSFT Quote) surpassed SanDisk (SNDK Quote) as the No. 2 vendor of MP3 players behind Apple (AAPL Quote) during the week of the Zune debut.

For the week ended Nov. 18, Microsoft had a 9% unit share and 13% dollar share of the U.S. portable player market, while Apple had 63% unit share and 72.5% dollar share.

"Microsoft attracted early adopters in a successful launch week for Zune, eking out SanDisk as the No. 2 digital audio player vendor," NPD's Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis, said in a statement. "This was especially impressive given the Zune's single capacity configuration and relatively high price point." ...