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The ecommerce giant has not provided sales figures for its store, which launched in the US just over a year ago and reached the UK this month, but analysts estimate that it has around 8% of the market, a figure that has remained constant.

“The market share has remained relatively

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stable throughout the year,” said Russ Crupnick, an analyst for research firm NPD. “I didn’t see anything out there that would be a major game-changer.”

Amazon has outsold iTunes in one area—its full album sales are double Apple’s—a result, Crupnick says, of heavy discounting which can see some albums offered for as little as 99¢.

But Crupnick believes that the evidence so far shows that Amazon cannot hope to increase its market share simply by competing with iTunes, indeed NPD’s figures show that only 10% of its customers also shop at the Apple store. Instead it should focus on integrating with other web services, notably social networks, to reach potential customers outside the Apple ecosystem. It’s recent deal with MySpace is a case in point; as its presence on Google’s Android mobile platform.