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Christmas 2006 was another gangbuster for Apple's iTunes website and all things iPod-associated. Microsoft's Zune? Not so much. So far, Zune is the GoBot to Apple's Transformer.

Hitwise reports today that the market share of visits to iTunes jumped 413 percent on Christmas Day, compared to the same day last year. Visits to the Apple Store were 110 percent this year as well.

Though visits to Zune.net, where recipients of Microsoft's mp3 consolation prize went to download software, spiked by 1030 percent Christmas Day over the previous week, the traffic wasn't near enough to dethrone iPod.

For the same one-week period, visits to the already-dwarfing iTunes site rose 1222 percent, outnumbering visits to Zune.net by 30 to 1.

"For the third holiday season in a row, the iPod has been the must-have Christmas gift," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise.

"Competitive offerings have not yet succeeded in capturing the attention of music listeners, and the surge in visits to the Apple Store shows that iPod owners are also engaged in filling and accessorizing their new devices."

Overall, average daily increase in visits to Hitwise Retail Index for the 2006 online holiday shopping season, which begins on Thanksgiving Day, was nearly six percent.

Cyber Monday and Thanksgiving Day enjoyed the largest individual increases year-over-year (from the same days in 2005), jumping 13.2 percent and 11.8 percent respectively.

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