Following our report of the ongoing battle between Creative and Apple in the micro-sized MP3 player market, and the latter's subsequent revision of its pricing strategy, sales figures now confirm that it is indeed Creative that has pulled ahead.

The worldwide leader is one of Apple's biggest rivals, and announced recently that it has shipped one million Zen Stone MP3 players. Throw the Zen Stone Plus into the mix and sales figures top a staggering 1.6 million, making it the fastest selling MP3 player in Europe. We've already looked at the new revision with the built-in speaker, a move that goes to show Creative is not content to sit on its laurels and aims to build on previous success.

Dennis Dress, European Sales Director for Consumer Electronics with Creative, was obviously pretty pleased, and his comments further underline exactly why Apple had a rethink with its Shuffle.

“At the launch we knew that the MP3 market was ready for a compact, stylish and simple MP3 player in a range of great colours. We also made the ZEN Stone ultra-affordable, positioning it as a great first choice for people on a budget or first-time users, and making it a great second or third player for experienced users. These figures confirm that our strategy was right!”