“Apple undershot its first-year iTunes Music Store download target by 30 million songs, the company admitted today, 12 months after the digital music business was launched. CEO Steve Jobs had forecast sales of 100 million songs, but in the end ITMS users acquired only 70 million – still sufficient to put the store at the top of the download service chart,” Tony Smith writes for The Register.
“Indeed, Apple today claimed a 70 per cent market share ‘for singles and albums,’ based on its own calculations. Customers are buying 2.7 million songs a week from the store – if they continue to do so, Apple will sell 140 million songs next year. Some 700,000 songs are now available for download. ‘iTunes has exceeded our wildest expectations during its first year,’ Jobs said in statement, the infamous ‘reality distortion field’ kicking in at this point, presumably,” Smith writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has stupidly put itself in the position of taking a wildly successful 70 million songs sold in its first year and making it look like a failure due to Jobs’ artificial “100 million goal.” Note to Steve: don’t set goals in public if you aren’t damn sure that you can hit them. You’ll just give your foes ammunition otherwise; even if the ammo you’re providing are duds, they can still wound. For reference, Napster 2.0 sold five million songs in its first four months of operation or less than Apple currently sells every 12 days.
I think Steve underestimated the legal stuff in the rest of the world.
If Europe had iTMS it had a 100 milj. songs sold.
The point isn’t Steve’s earlier prediction so much as his characterization today of iTunes success “beyond our wildest expectations…”.
A little humility – like noting that while 70M is still 70%, it did fell short of the announced 100M target – would certainly have pre-empted and tempered the Register’s aptly critical stance.
And then the Register could be asking instead, why did Pepsi fail to roll out the iTunes bottlecaps in the nations largest population centers (NY, CA) until the last week of the promotion!
Personally, I don’t give a shit whether a huge corporation reaches a sales projection or goal. But I laughed out loud when I read the quote saying the store “exceeded our wildest expectations.” That is so obviously false. Jobs could have saved face if he had just added, “when we opened a year ago,” but he didn’t. He pretended to have never said anything about 100 million songs.
Please folks, put this into perspective. Steve Jobs made a prediction and slice it anyway you want its a lot of songs.
Yes Steve Jobs does need to make progress with predictions or clarification. This is one of the major reasons that he should have partnered with Real Player. Glasser’s predictions are much more in line with what is out there.
Glasser would have accurately predicted that they will sell over 100, count them 100 songs over the next year.
Ahh, let’s face it. iTunes only sold over 70 Million songs. It clearly is a flop and record industry will ask Apple to shut the experiment down. It failed.
End of story.
All PC users happy now? Now let me listen to the FREE weekly song that I just downloaded and synch on my Mini.
unka fester said “And then the Register could be asking instead, why did Pepsi fail to roll out the iTunes bottlecaps in the nations largest population centers (NY, CA) until the last week of the promotion!”
Well, that would have required a thought or two from the register. Why put any thought into something like that when no thought is required to bash Apple. Not only that, Apple bashing generates more hits on the website.
In the iTMS for Windows / Pepsi promo rollout, Steve said that the Pepsi promo was a big part of the 100,000,000 goal. Several regular posters on this site even watched the QT video and referenced the exact time index where he said it…. SO originally Pepsi was to have played a big part in that number.
unka fester is right, Pepsi distribution screwed the pooch and didn’t get the bottles into the market place. If it were possible, the bottles should have been in place a couple of days before the superbowl, in big metropolitan areas, mid size urban, and smaller rural communities. As it was, the promo bottles showed up about 2 weeks ago in my area. Needless to say I had already lost interest, after holding off on purchases from the iTMS in hopes of scoring some songs. Apple lost big time on this promo, and from what I had seen in the stores, much of the blame goes to Pepsi. While searching for 6 weeks after the Superbowl, I saw a ton of Pepsi caps that had former promotions that had already expired. My guess is, now that the promo is 2 days from over, I’ll see WORTHLESS yellow bottle caps until July or August.
Steve missed his mark, has tried to gloss it over, people are not buying the BS… They missed the goal, regardless of who’s fault it is. Steve cannot say I screwed up, or Pepsi screwed up. If he badmouths pepsi’s horrible distribution, or places the blame on them in any way, it will KILL future promotional partners. No one will want to partner with Apple if they speak badly about the partner after the fact. He is putting on a brave face, smiling, and focusing on the positive aspects of the iTMS… Not much else he can do.
Joe Mc:
Don’t be an idiot all your life.
Pepsi is “giving away” the tracks.
Apple is selling them wholesale to Pepsi, probably at around $0.90 seeing as there are no credit card charges.
Therefore, when the promotion closes – on Friday – and Pepsi report how the promotion has done from their perspective, Apple will be free to talk about how it did from their perspective.
And I wouldn’t even expect Apple to talk about it as a discrete subject. However, don’t be surprised if the next milestone is either 125 or 150 million and gets reported after the June reporting call.
Gosh MCCFR, since I am repeating just what Steve has said, perhaps you should flame him. You would, of course, have to remove your shnozze from his bum first.
“1 year. Seventy million songs.”
Get over it.
Steve could’ve had his 100-mill if iTMS ran on Classic. But nooo….
Anyway, sales will accelerate when Europe is in. Downunder, ninemsn.com or something (I never visit) has had radio spots touting $A 0.99 music downloads for at least a week. At today’s exchange rates, that’s about US$ 0.71 — which is probably pricey if it’s in wma format
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What’s disturbing is a MOSR report that HP might be pulling away from promoting its version of iTunes/iPod. Maybe they got an offer they couldn’t refuse?
Hey Joe McConnel,
Why is it that you can’t keep to the subject matter without taking it out on others who just have an opinion? I read your rants from yesterday and I find it so tiring that you come on this site to bash other’s opinions, and them in general. What’s wrong with a little common courtesy? If you don’t like Macs or Apple or Steve Jobs, then find a nice Windows fan site to write your diatribe.
Now go ahead. Say something sarcastic and debasing about me (BTW, a Mac user).
I am thinking but can’t come up with anything sarcastic chuckster. If you sucked up to Steve Jobs as others did here today I could.
If you are just another thin-skinned mac user who demands that all things Apple be accepted as perfect, and find my attempts at accuracy, and my occasionally divergent opinion, troubling, you have lots of company. Nothing wrong with running with a pack.
the 70 million does not include the pepsi promo, guaranteed, because last month when the 50 million figure came out, Apple said that it didn’t include the pepsi number…
the pepsi promo actually are sales to apple, and quoting part of Job’s quote without the context is missleading…
he said clearly that since they are about to give away 100 million songs, that he was pretty sure he would make the goal of making the 100 million songs real….. people leaving this part of the quote out are misleading about what happened on the day Steve gave the prediction………..
it is a clear indication that he was counting the pepsi promo…. however later i’m sure that he set his own and apple goal of selling 100 million songs without the promo….. and that is what he is talking about when he says he isn’t going to make that goal….
but people pointing to the original statement, without including the whole context are missleading when they say that the original goal was not met… because it was met by a long shot…. even if the pepsi promo only gave away 30 million, they still made the original goal….. but in fact the Pepsi promo gave far more away…..
that is all there is too it….
jon.
The reason why Apple did not meet the 100M goals is that it overestimated the popularity of Pepsi. It appears that not too many people drink Pepsi and take advantage of the free song offering. In any case, people should look at the glass as 70% full as oppose to 30% empty!!!
…they are NOT considered sales by Neilson Soundscan.
When Apple and Pepsi cooked this up, they were not aware of this. Also, AOL linking, Win32 support and the Pepsi deal were all supposed to count towards the Big Finish.
Now somene needs to ask the correct question:
“How many songs were given away via the Pepsi promo?” I wonder if we’ll *ever* know this nuber.
They might not be considered sales by Soundscan, but they’re sales nonetheless.
Joe:
Still carrying on the idiot act.
The 100 million target included Pepsi, the 70 achieved doesn’t.
The promotion isn’t over till Friday.
Answer me this: how many Dell DJs sold today ? How many WMA songs sold this year ?
Maybe you’re feeling a little insecure about your favourite platform? God knows, you could never be as insecure as your favourite platform.
Nice last turn of phrase there MC.
You say that the 100 million target included pepsi, Steve doesn’t.
I am pretty sure that if there were a chance that the pepsi redemptions had a shot at making the 100 million, Steve would have wiggled around the next few days until the promotion is over, instead of crying uncle already.
As to your dell/wma question, who knows or cares? You, like most before you, due to extreme insecurity over YOUR choice, have confused my arguement about itunes sales for love of my platform. Thin skinned does not quite describe the full effect on this crowd of my attempts to be fair and inquisitive about the “news” articles headlined here.
That’s what makes it so much fun to read and post here, actually.
And, MC, in my case, it WOULD just be an act. Not sure about you.
Gentlemen,
Please let�s not get so emotional here.
The bottom line is the iTunes return on investment has been pphenomenal for Apple Computer computer. I am sorry for those that get caught up in their emotional baggage with their dislike for Steve Jobs and Apple Computers… and now the indomitable iPod.
Count to 70,000,000 and the iPod sales and who is laughing all the way to the bank? Jobs and AAPL share holders.
Who cares about the iTMS sales numbers, that’s just “fluff” to sell more iPods. I would be more concerned with the iPod sales numbers as that�s where Apple is making money. iPods are selling more than ever, even the mini is a success. I should know personally, my wife has been on a waiting list now for a month at our local Apple retail store.
Joe:
You can’t have it both ways.
Either you take the aspiration to the 100M target which included the Pepsi promotion, and there are more than enough people who have pointed to the exact time reference.
Or you take the next public reference to a target (70-75M) in March, by which time he’s obviously realised that he can’t report the sales either because they’d be inconsistent with Soundscan or because they’re [B]commercially sensitive[/B] and [B]the promotion hasn’t finished by the time the one year anniversary is up[/B].
Like Thurrott, you wriggle to appear even-handed: I don’t confuse your argument (see how easy spelling can be) about iTunes with your obsession to make your chosen platform look good despite its obvious failings.
You say you don’t care about Dell, Windows, or WMA; so why do you spend so much time supporting Windows (and all of its satanic helpers) when it’s being criticised? What a sad nihilistic little life you have, willing to criticise others beliefs and opinions whilst denying your own.
BTW, I’m not insecure about my choice and I’ve been making this choice since 1989 whilst Windows was still working out how to deal with more than 640K of memory.
In comparison, your platform is still a load of bolts thrown up in the air in the hope that the resulting pile on the floor might resemble a platform that ‘normal’ people can use and maintain for longer than 12 months without needing a complete rebuild. Insecure and incomplete, Windows is an answer to a question I don’t even want to hear. It may be cheap, but so is a $20 hooker and I’m not sure I want to take that risk.
It is always good to set high goals- even if one may not make it . At least SJ had the courage to admit that Apple would not make 100 million. But 70 million is nothing to sneeze at.
Register is trying to have fun at Mac users’ expense. Let it- it should not bother Mac users one bit.
On a different note: How about the new update to itunes? I especially like the ‘printing out CD covers’ feature.
…if you are just another thin-skinned Windoze user who demands that ALL things Microsoft be accepted as perfect…
…and find my attempts at accuracy… [Oh, you kill me, that’s funny!]
…and my occasionally inflammitory opinion…
…Nothing wrong with running with a pack. [Which one? Apple’s or your beloved Microsoft’s]
NOTHING! I repeat, ‘nothing’ Apple can do will EVER measure up for the likes of these WinTrolls. The idea that Apple missed a prediction is MORE important than the actual outcome. That FACT that Apple BEAT the COMBINED competition by a factor of SEVEN is somehow lost to this type.
WinTrolls continue to chastise Mac users for being blind to any Apple faults, while in the same breath trivialize ALL of Apple’s successes.
If Apple goes out of business – like these WinTrolls want – 3 things will happen:
1st – WinTrolls will have FEWER choices, tho’ this will be EASIER for them.
2nd – WinTrolls will be able to share all their Windows troubles with ANYBODY – no more MacPeople who can’t feel their pain.
And finally, WinTrolls won’t have anyone to hate.
Keep jabbering: 70,000,000 + 75 Million or 100 million…
chameleon…
For Dull PC users who have had to eat crow so many times, I am sorry to hurt your feelings but I repeat to you the man�s words:
iPod sales are the Reality Check here…
Jobs and AAPL share holders will be laughing all the way to the bank for 2-5 years.
I think Joe Mc has either been hitting the sauce or got turned down by the wife last night. Anyway, SOMETHING has put a bug up his bum.
Now that the news is out that the 70 million included the 5 million redeemed so far, we can wrap this up:
MDN headline:
The Register: ‘Apple misses iTunes sales target by 30%’
MDN pack response: “just wait till Friday”; “he never said it”; “he didn’t mean it”
My response: I agree with MDN and Steve.
MDN pack goes nuts. MCCFR apparently misses my only reference to macs, a compliment in my 11:11, and goes ballistic about stuff he claims I have said in the past.
Thinskinned doesn’t come close to describing you guys today.
See ya tomorrow
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hmmm…. 5 million from the pepsi promo….. that didn’t turn out well…
looks like Pepsi dropped the ball on getting the bottles out the door…. i was wrong….. i didn’t realize how badly Pepsi dropped the ball…. or that it was so bad that it would finally be included in the final figure….
so Apple really did miss a target…. well actually a promo by Pepsi missed…
the final results except the Pepsi promo have been on all accounts outstanding…..
Apple again restated that the original target included the Pepsi promo just today…….
from Cnet:
———————————————————-
The 5 million free tracks Pepsi gave away were included as part of Apple’s statement earlier Wednesday that it has sold 70 million songs in the first year of its music service. Apple said last fall that it hoped to distribute 100 million tracks in its first year, but when that figure was calculated, it was expected that more winning bottle caps would be redeemed.
———————————————————-
anybody stating that Apple or Steve didn’t plan on including the Pepsi Promo is not understanding the context of what was being said by Jobs or Apple, including the very first “prediction”…
jon.