“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.
Joe:
One compliment about iTunes doesn’t make up for your consistent line, which is: Windows are cheaper than Macs, and they’re not really insecure – it’s just people don’t use them properly. Unless you’re now denying that position.
To which my response is: Windows is not cheaper over a five-year lifecycle, it should be more secure, when you buy a car you don’t have to fit locks – why should a lay-user have to fiddle ‘under the hood’ the moment they start up their system.
And if you think I’m going ballistic, you have no idea of what ballistic really means.
It’s a missed target – it’s still 5% redemption which is at the top end of what happens normally anyway; it’s not Apple’s reponsibility to get the bottles into the store, Apple will still make 100 million downloads by the end of June, and – seeing as the real game in town is iPods – I’ll get really concerned about the stuff that makes a profit.
MCCFR said that a 5% redemption rate is at the top end of promotional redemptions anyway…..
I don’t doubt that at all. Still, can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Pepsi had released more than 15-20% of the bottles before the promotion ended. I hope Apple chooses their promo partners a little better next time.