• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, December 28, 2006

Despite a nudge from Microsoft's new Zune, the iPod remained the must-have Christmas gift, with visits to iTunes up 413% on Christmas Day over last year's holiday.

Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence service, also found that visits to the Apple Store were up 110% over last year's Christmas Day. The store was the fourth-most-visited Web site in the Hitwise Retail Index on Dec. 25.

Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, said the number of visits to iTunes on Christmas Day outnumbered 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 Tancer. "Competitive offerings have not yet succeeded in capturing the attention of music listeners."

CyberMonday also lived up to its name--at least for browsing, according to Hitwise. It recorded the largest individual retail Web site increases over the same day a year earlier on the Monday after Thanksgiving (up 13.2% over the year earlier) and Thanksgiving Day (up 11.8%).

In the week before Christmas, Web site visits were up 6.2% over the same week in 2005. Hitwise also reports that:

Amazon.com remained the most-visited site within the Index, with 13.8% of visits. (Earlier this week, Amazon said it had its busiest holiday season ever, with more than 4 million items ordered on its peak day of Dec. 11.) Wal-Mart was second, with 9.1% market share.

CircuitCity.com and BestBuy.com received the biggest increases in visits from week to week at 20.7% and 17.1%, respectively. Hallmark.com jumped 14 spots, from No. 31 to No. 17--a 97% increase in visits for the week.

Nintendo DS was the product term most searched for, followed by iPod, Nintendo Wii and then Wii.