iTunes Music Store hits five million songs sold; Apple to ship one millionth iPod this week

Apple today announced that music fans have downloaded over five million songs from the iTunes Music Store since its launch eight weeks ago today. In addition, over 46 percent of the songs have been purchased as albums, and over 80 percent of the over 200,000 songs available on the online
store have been purchased at least once. Apple also announced that it will ship its one millionth iPod this week. Apple introduced the third generation of its ultra-portable digital music player in April, and it has become a huge hit with music lovers worldwide.

“The iTunes Music Store is changing the way people buy music,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in the press release. “Selling five million songs in the first eight weeks has far surpassed our expectations, and clearly illustrates that many customers are hungry for a legal way to acquire their music online.”

“The iTunes Music Store has defined what it means for people to have music instantly — and legally — at their fingertips,” said Doug Morris, Universal Music Group’s CEO in the press release. “The iTunes Music Store is pushing us into the future of how music is produced and consumed.”

“Apple has shown the music industry, artists and consumers that there is a successful and easy way of legally distributing and obtaining music over the Internet,” said Roger Ames, Warner Music Group’s chairman and CEO in the press release. “Everyone in our industry is looking for a solution and Apple is leading the way with the iTunes Music Store.”

The iTunes Music Store lets customers easily search a broad catalog of over 200,000 tracks to instantly locate any song by title, artist or album. With just one click, they can purchase the songs they want and download them directly into their iTunes 4 music library for just 99 cents per song, without any subscription fees. Songs are downloaded in pristine digital quality and can be burned onto an unlimited number of CDs for personal use at no extra cost, played on up to three Macintosh(R) computers, listened to on an unlimited number of iPods, and used in other Mac applications, including iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD. Thousands of new songs, new albums and
exclusive tracks are added to the iTunes Music Store every week. PC users will be able to enjoy downloading songs from the iTunes Music Store when it is released for the Windows platform by the end of this year.

The new super-slim iPods store up to 7,500 songs in a stunning enclosure that is lighter and thinner than two CDs. iPod is the only portable music player with Apple’s patent pending Auto-Sync, an innovative feature that automatically downloads entire music libraries into iPod and keeps it up-to-date whenever the iPod is plugged into a Mac or Windows PC. iPod features completely solid-state “no moving parts” navigation wheel and buttons; an elegant dock with audio out for fast and easy connection to a computer or stereo; an “On-The-Go” playlist so users can build a playlist
right on their iPod; and a customizable main menu so users can promote the features they use most often to their top level menu. The iPod family includes a 10GB model for just $299 (US), a 15GB model for $399 (US) and a high-capacity 30GB model that holds up to 7,500 songs for $499 (US).

More info on the iTunes Music Store and iPod here.