“Japanese consumers have downloaded one million songs from Apple’s iTunes digital music service since it launched on Thursday, the company has said,” BBC News reports. “Apple said the launch of the iTunes online music store, which sells songs by domestic and international artists, had been a ‘huge success.'”
BBC News reports, “Japan became the twentieth country, and the first in Asia, to offer iTunes. It has sold more than 500 million songs worldwide, accounting for 80% of all legally downloaded music in the US. The success of iTunes has helped Apple reinforce its pre-eminence in the digital music technology market. ‘If they have a very successful launch in Japan, there is a very good chance that iTunes will become the de facto standard,’ said John Yang, equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s.”
Full article here.
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The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
I think we are already there and have been for some time. It’s up to Apple to keep it that way.
MW maybe, as in, maybe it will?
YEAH BABY! Do I make you horny?
I think it already is the de facto standard.
I’d say a 99% chance.
The Music industry isn’t going to like that. No leaverage when the time comes for a new deal.
Umm, attention BBC…where have you been? iTunes has already been the de facto standard for quite some time now…
QUESTION:
What’s the worldwide rate of songs sold per day now? I’m curious when we’re going to see the 1 billionth song sold.
That’s a very small “if.”
The Beeb shouldn’t be bashed for a pretty positive and accurate story. It’s hard to say iTunes is THE global standard until it dominates Asia, starting with Japan. That process has just begun.
Give ’em a break!
“What’s the worldwide rate of songs sold per day now? I’m curious when we’re going to see the 1 billionth song sold.”
I wish they would have kept that counter going after the 500 millionth contest.
Remember folks, the record industry initially told Apple that one million songs in the first 6 months would have been considered a success. Apple did it in a week, with only OSX users that had to go out and GET the software to do it with.
I think the analyst was referring to iTunes becoming a defacto standard in Japan, not in general.
I honestly think iTMS will exceed 1 billion songs downloaded by Christmas.
I’d say 98.3%& chance, mayby 98.4.
MW: ‘example’.
Make your own inferences.
Maybe Napster’s marketshare will hit 2% by Christmas. But then again, maybe not…
Suicidal Gingerbread:
Round about the 500 million mark (between 430 million and 500 million) Apple was moving around 1.67 million downloads/day and was averaging 1.525 million or so towards the end of the promotion.
So Apple should have been at around 525 million before last Thursday’s launch and should now be adding 12.5 million downloads/week.
Apple should hit 700 million around Thanksgiving (my numbers say they’ll actually be at 720 million, but let’s be conservative), at which point they’ll start to get another lift from the holiday season’s iPod purchases to possibly around 2 million downloads/day delivering 800 million by the turn of 2006.
Getting the lift of the full holiday season’s iPod and other iTMS stores may see downloads reach 2.1 million/day come the turn of the year, which would see the billion track mark reached somewhere between the 7th and 15th April next year.
Shall we shag now or shag later, baby!?!
Mini me, stop humping the “laser”!
When it comes to legal music downloads, Apple is the Borg. Every country in which it opens an iTunes store is assimilated (in a good way)!
Resistance is futile.
Take that Sony – BOYCOTT SONY PRODUCTS!