iPodNN | iPod leads growing MP3 player market

140 million MP3 players were sold in 2005, Apple sold ~40 million iPods in 2005. 50% of MP3 owners surveyed had an iPod. Apple had 80% marketshare in March. Apple sold 5 million iPods in the year ago quarter which is about how many MP3 players Sony sold for all of last year.

The numbers are rather confusing, previously Apple's 80% number was for HDD based players. The numbers touted after the Shuffle came out were lower (~70%) but were for the entire market. As the shuffle came out last year, it seems like there is a large gap between 30% of MP3 players sold last year being iPods and 50% off MP3 owners having an iPod. If after the shuffle came out they had 70%+ of the market why did they only sell 30% of the MP3 players? Perhaps MP3 phones were counted in the worldwide total number of MP3 players sold and the 80% is for the US MP3 only device market.