Apple's iPod has taken almost 60 per cent of the Japanese portable digital music player market, the company claimed today, citing local news source Business Computer News (BCN). The iPod leads its nearest - alas unnamed - rival by a "wide margin", it added.

Meanwhile, the iTunes Music Store has become the number one online music service in Japan, Apple said, though without stating exactly how it knows this to be the case.

Apple launched ITMS in Japan on 4 August, and went on to sell more than 1m songs in the online shop's first four days in business - more songs, it claimed at the time, than other Japanese services have sold in a month.

As for the iPod, the secret to its success appears to have been the Nano. It was launched in September, the same month the iPod family's market share pushed past 50 per cent, above which it has stayed ever since, according to BCN subsidiary WebBCN Ranking. In that time, Apple has launched the video-enabled fifth-generation iPod. ®