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With observers anticipating a spate of lawsuits against the like of Grokster and Kazaa, Apple's iTunes Music Store is ideally positioned to pick up customers no longer able to download music for free.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said that the ruling 'would likely lead to a pick-up in sales for legitimate online content providers' among whom Apple has more than 70 per cent market share.

However it remains to be seen whether legal action against software makers can slow down the rate of file sharing, given the number of people who have downloaded and are still using peer-to-peer applications.

Nonetheless, any early signs of a spin-off for

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Apple should help to offset falls in its share price following a profit warning by a rival MP3 player maker. Creative said that for the period ending 30 June revenue will be about $60mn less (around 17 per cent) than its previous forecast because of 'sagging demand'.

However Munster said that Creative's plight would not be reflected in Apple's results, not least because sales of Apple's iPod shuffle are one reason why Creative has suffered

'In addition to Apple's market share gains in the flash segment, we believe the June quarter is a seasonally slow time for this market and we do not expect blow-out iPod numbers from Apple (expect iPod units of 5.5 million for June, up from 5.3 million in March),' he wrote in a note to investors. 'We do, however, believe that Apple will significantly benefit from back-to-school and holiday buying in the September and December quarters.'

However Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf took a more cautious approach.

'If Creative music player sales are soft it infers that Apple sales are soft,' he said.

Apple investors are also jittery over the threat to the iPod's dominance posed by mobile phones, with both manufacturers and network operators keen to turn phones into multimedia consoles.