Zune Thoughts: 2 Million Zunes Sold Since November 2006 Launch - Wait, is That Good or Bad?

"As part of its recent Zune update, Microsoft has revealed that it has sold two million of the music players since their launch in November 2006, revealing relatively flat growth for the device lineup. Although the company originally promised and slightly exceeded a target for its first million sales between the original launch date and June 2007, the company has largely remained silent on its data for its players in nearly a year. The sales still give Microsoft a slight gain in overall US marketshare from three to four percent, according to figures published by the NPD Group."

I've been wondering about the marketshare numbers for a while now, and it seems ignorance might have been a more comfortable place to be - the number aren't all that encouraging. From November 2006 to July 2007 (Microsoft's fiscal year end), they sold about 1.2 million Zunes - and these are the Zune 30 models. So that means, essentially that from the launch of the second-gen players in November 2007 until now-ish, they've sold 800K units. 800K units in roughly five months. Wait a second, so that means roughly 160K units per month, on average. Extrapolate that out 12 months, assuming flat growth, and you've got roughly 1.9 million Zunes being sold between now and the end of April 2009. Isn't that...good? Have I mentioned I dislike the way statistics can be made to look positive or negative?

Microsoft needs to get the product out into more than just one market - and, hey, there's only so much us 30 million Canadians can help. They need to get the Zune into Europe and Asia ASAP - after they add unicode support of course.