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Four and a half million of those were shifted in the last three months, more than doubling the figure for the previous quarter.

The iPod, iPod mini and iPod photo are estimated by market analysts NPD Group to account for more 90 per cent of all hard disk players sold and around 65 per cent of the combined total for HD-based and flash memory players.

Around a third of all players sold are flash-based and Apple has now taken on that market with the unveiling of the 512MB or 1GB iPod Shuffle. In common with the other iPods it will play MP3 and AAC files ripped from CD as well as songs bought from Apple's iTunes Music Store. Apple has sold some 230 million songs through iTMS, claiming a market share of around 70 per cent.