It was announced earlier today that Apple Inc. has set an all time sales high with 21 million Ipod units sold over the third quarter for this past Holiday season. With sales of more than 3.4 billion Apple’s portable media player accounted for roughly half of all sales in that time period.

The good news for Zune fans is that retail research firm NPD Group, a company that was reasonably harsh on the Zune in its initial evaluation of prospects for it to make any inroads on the marketplace has also announced that Zune was able to snag 10.2% of all units sold in the PMD category. This news is great for Microsoft who predicted 1 million units would be sold by June 30^th; the numbers place them well within striking range for that number.