The Apple iTunes player is storming up the streaming media charts and is expected to pass RealPlayer by mid-2006 if it continues to grow at its current speed.

That’s according to analyst Nielsen, which also found that users of iTunes were spending almost twice as long downloading content to their iPods and other media players as users of RealPlayer or Windows Media Player.

Only Microsoft’s player has more unique users than iTunes, predicted to hit 80 million by mid-2006, compared to the current iTunes estimate of 30 million.

However, Windows Media Player is actually losing its market share, with RealPlayer remaining the nearest rival to iTunes in terms of growth. The Apple store has already overtaken QuickTime in popularity.

Users of iTunes spend an average 111 minutes downloading and streaming music and videos each time they visit the site, compared to the 46.4 minutes spent on RealPlayer.

The news comes as analysts predict sales of iPods in the March quarter could hit nine million, driven by the popularity of the new 1GB iPod nano and price cuts to the iPod shuffle.

© 2006 Adfero Ltd