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Christine Andrews, lead product manager of MSN, accepted that 'iTunes has done a great job of helping to elevate the market', but claims that it is Microsoft that offers choice.

'We're different because Apple is a closed system. If you want Apple, you have to use the iPod. A lot of people want choice and we offer that.' Downloads from Microsoft's store can be played on the majority of portable players.

Whether people want choice, however, is debatable. Following figures, reported yesterday, that the iPod had 82 per cent of the US market in the year up to August, another set of statistics puts the share

'Ninety-two per cent of customers buying hard-drive based music players are choosing iPods, and over 65 percent of customers buying any type of portable digital music player including flash-based players are choosing iPods,' Apple said in a written statement, quoting figures from The NPD Group.

'This means that the iTunes music store, with its catalogue of over one million songs, works with 65 per cent of all MP3 players and 92 per cent of all hard-drive based music players being sold today. There is a lot of customer choice happening today, it's just that Microsoft doesn't like the choices customers are making,' continued Apple.

Apple might have added that there is nothing about the iPod that compels people to buy their music through iTunes - in fact given the number of iPods in existence iTunes downloads certainly comprise just a tiny minority of the stored music.

NPD also reported that the number of people visiting online stores in the US fell over the summer from a peak of 1.3 million in April to one million in May, June and July. Apple has about 70 per cent of the market with Napster in second place with 11 per cent. NPD added that there has been no noticeable decline in P2P activity.