Apple today announced that iTunes is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group. Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers. iTunes has sold over four billion songs, with an incredible 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone, and offers the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs from all of the majors and thousands of independent labels.
“We’d like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, in the press release. “We continue to add great new features like iTunes Movie Rentals to give our customers even more reason to love iTunes.”
Last month, Apple launched iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies and watch them on their PCs or Macs, all current generation iPods (iPod classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch), iPhone and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. iTunes Movie Rentals will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of this month, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.
iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only and are $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions (available only via Apple TV) are priced just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99. Movie rentals from the iTunes Store for Mac or Windows require iTunes 7.6. iTunes Movie Rentals require a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase.
MacDailyNews Note:
The Apple iTunes Music Store Milestones:
• February 26, 2008: 4 billion songs sold.
• July 31, 2007: 3 billion songs sold.
• April 09, 2007: 2.5 billion songs sold.
• January 09, 2007: 2 billion songs sold.
• February 23, 2006: 1 billion songs sold.
• February 7, 2006: 950 million songs sold.
• January 9, 2006: 850 million songs sold.
• October 25, 2005: Available in Australia.
• August 4, 2005: Available in Japan.
• July 17, 2005: 500 million songs sold.
• May 10, 2005: 400 million songs sold. Custom stores for music fans in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
• January 24, 2005: 250 million songs sold.
• December 16, 2004: 200 million songs sold.
• December 2, 2004: Available in Canada.
• October 26, 2004: Available to music lovers in the European Union.
• October 14, 2004: 150 million songs sold.
• July 12, 2004: 100 million songs sold.
• June 15, 2004: Available in UK France Germany.
• April 28, 2004: 70 million songs sold.
• March 15, 2004: 50 million songs sold.
• December 15, 2003: 25 million songs sold.
• October 16, 2003: Available for windows. 13 million songs sold.
• September 8, 2003: 10 million songs sold.
• June 23, 2003: 5 million songs sold.
• May 14, 2003: 2 million songs sold.
• May 5, 2003: One million songs sold.
• April 28, 2003: Launched in United States.
“Maybe MikeK wants to see “The Glass Menagerie”.
——————–
Ampar, you’ve got me figured out!
The future of music retailing is in subscriptions. You get unlimited music for a low monthly price. More is always better. MAC lemmings are the only suckers who purchase music. Whatever. Is that ‘N Sync track so timeless that you want it occupying precious disk space 20 years from now? Okay, bad example. Of course you want ‘N Sync music around forever, but I think you get my idea.
Microsoft’s wonderful Zune Marketplace doesn’t use currency—they use points which is more fun than currency. Stodgy old Apple hasn’t figured this out yet but I expect them to copy Microsoft in this regard. Again. So in the case of Zune Marketplace a small amount of points are deducted monthly from your account. It’s like a game when you use points. Using money is boring. I-Tunes has met its match.
Your potential. Our passion.™
mikeK, just do the math:
2-3 billion songs: 7 month
3-4 billion songs: 7 month
“mikeK, just do the math:”
—————
Understood, my point is there are still hundreds or thousands of new iTunes accounts being created every month.. iPhone sales alone are going to be responsible for millions of new accounts, so is Apple TV and the 40-50 million new iPods that will be sold this year.
^^^
Should read “hundreds OF thousands,” not “or”
Clearly, this is a sign that Apple should buy Wal-Mart.
Points and not money?
Sounds like a classic Bait and Switch marketing game to me.
Today 1point = 1dollar (but points have no cash back value so once you’ve paid for them there in no refund value)
At Microsoft’s whim 1 point redemption value = .25 cent or 1point redemption value = .10 cent.
But, 1point purchase cost is $1dollar or .50 cent to buy depending on the wind direction from Ballmer’s bum.
Points are what only sold in bundles of 25, 50 and 100?
It’s a classic fraud shill for a Bait and Switch marketing tactic.
ok, so if you say the average album has 12 songs 4B/12 = 333 M albums.
That’s a lot, but does anyone know how many CD’s were sold in like 1997?
How I support iTunes Store.
1) Collect all my change in a jar over the month.
2) At the end of the month, go to a Coinstar machince and redeem for an iTunes ecertificate.
3) Redeem to your account and buy music or buy (or rent) movies.
This equates to around $50 bucks a month.
“Wal-Mart Music Downloads”
“We’re sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT. Please visit again after you upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. Visit our Help section for complete system requirements information.”
The best download experience?
For a Rhesus monkey on crack with ADD?
You could probably dig up the numbers for 1997 CD sales somewhere in the Google land. The point here is that the trend is clear. ITunes Store continues to grow. Its sales continue to grow. Its growth RATE is slowing, which means, it is slowly maturing.
Meanwhile, In Microsoftia, if you want to buy something, don’t bother with US dollars; you must use their official currency (called points, but it could have easily been called Escudos, Dirhams, Ringitts, or any other equally foreign currency). So I wanna buy seven songs and I have 425 points; can I do it or can I not? What’s the exchange rate there… 70 points per US dollar (I might want to treat it as Kenyan Shilling; it’s about the same exchange rate), so how many Kenyan Shillings for seven songs? about 483 (nice round number, ain’t it); dang it, I’m short; I need to buy more; five bucks will get me about 350 more shillings, which should do it; but what do I to with the rest of the Shillings; they’re worthless here in the US, I can’t sell them back for US currency… This Microsoftia sure is a colossal hassle..!
No wonder iTunes is the king of the hill!
“Microsoft’s wonderful Zune Marketplace doesn’t use currency—they use points which is more fun than currency. Stodgy old Apple hasn’t figured this out yet but I expect them to copy Microsoft in this regard. Again. So in the case of Zune Marketplace a small amount of points are deducted monthly from your account. It’s like a game when you use points. Using money is boring.”
So THAT’S how you got that ‘free’ copy of Vista Bourne Ultimate Edition! Teach us more, o Master Blaster!
What is it about points you MAC-tards don’t understand? Is the humdrum miserable experience of using an overpriced proprietary MAC sucking all the joy out of your lives?
Points are FUN! It’s like a game. In American football when you score a touchdown you are rewarded in POINTS, and it feels good. You aren’t rewarded in dollars, francs or rupees. It wouldn’t be as much fun.
Maybe you MAC lemmings are just a bunch of old fuddy duddies who just can’t see what the hip, young Gen Y Facebook army will gravitate to: Microsoft Zune Points. Because they’re cool.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Is it fair to assume that iTMS is running on Xserve/XRaids? If so, not only must Apple be one of the biggest users of these boxes, but it would argue that this hardware/software combo is definitely Enterprise class (something we already knew), and Apple should talk about it. Perhaps someone who knows can shed light on the architecture being used.
“Points are FUN!”
And you’ve just earned enough points to have your poetic license punted for pointedly trying to drive a point home under the influence of a pint of points.
“Is it fair to assume that iTMS is running on Xserve/XRaids?”
Probably. But they do seem to keep it a secret.
phobos.apple.com
Netblock Owner: Apple Computer, Inc. 20740 Valley Green Drive, MS32E Cupertino CA 95014 US
IP address : 17.250.236.65
OS: unknown
Web Server: Apache/2.0.58 Unix
Last changed: 15-Feb-2008
Zuned: What’s the ‘deal’ with Microsoft Points?
Apple has NOT always used its own server hardware. I wouldn’t be surprised if iTunes runs on Linux servers. Everything I’ve read suggests those scale up better than XServes. Is that not right?
@ Zune Tang
“Points are FUN! It’s like a game. In American football when you score a touchdown you are rewarded in POINTS, and it feels good. You aren’t rewarded in dollars, francs or rupees. It wouldn’t be as much fun. “
And just like football, MS hires someone to try and spy on the opposing team’s game plan (and still can’t get it right). And receiving Points from MS is about as much fun as crawling across a five mile stretch of broken glass on your belly with your fly unzipped.
MS: Your Frustration. Our Fault.
@Zune Tang
“”Points are FUN! It’s like a game. In American football when you score a touchdown you are rewarded in POINTS, and it feels good. You aren’t rewarded in dollars, francs or rupees. It wouldn’t be as much fun. “
No dollars? Try telling Shawn Merriman that! Hah.
I love you Zune. Keep ’em coming!
Whatever. Obviously there weren’t any curmudgeon MAC sheep in Microsoft’s market research. Of course there’s only 3 or 4 people who actually use MAC so they’re pretty hard to find. You can’t argue with Microsoft’s findings: people would rather use points than actual money therefore points rule the day at Zune Marketplace. And that’s why Zune Marketplace will rule over I-Tunes in a year. Outlook calendar it, MAC dorks. Maybe Microsoft should buy I-Tunes instead of Yahoo and just get it over with.
So go ahead, MAC sheep. You can use your currency. I’m going to use points.
Your potential. Our passion.™
“Whatever. Obviously there weren’t any curmudgeon MAC sheep in Microsoft’s market research. Of course there’s only 3 or 4 people who actually use MAC so they’re pretty hard to find. You can’t argue with Microsoft’s findings: people would rather use points than actual money therefore points rule the day at Zune Marketplace. And that’s why Zune Marketplace will rule over I-Tunes in a year. Outlook calendar it, MAC dorks. Maybe Microsoft should buy I-Tunes instead of Yahoo and just get it over with.
So go ahead, MAC sheep. You can use your currency. I’m going to use points.”
Wait, lemme get off the gravy train here for a second. You actually know of 3 or people at the Death Sta— um, Redmond that actually use Macs?
But don’t you need actual money to “buy” points? So I cannot get points with points? What’s the point?
So Zune will rule in a year from now, not a year or so back when it came out, eh? Well, I’ll iCal it under “Squirt me in the eye”.
Oh, and it’s “Mac”, not “MAC”. It’s like me trying to say Zune the way you do. Watch:
ZHIT
See? I can’t do it.
Think Different.
Gee, Zune Tang is sure pulling out the redundant postings.
“The future of music retailing is in subscriptions.”
-Bullsh*t said before, Bullshit said now.™
“More is always better.”
-Yup, more songs sold by Apple is sure a lot better than the trickle of songs sold/rented by everyone else.
“MAC lemmings are the only suckers who purchase music.”
-Lots of Windows users have iTunes on those Delluded computers, and own iPods.
” I think you get my idea.”
Bullsh*t, bullsh*t, bullsh*t, yeah we get the idea.
“they use points which is more fun than currency. Stodgy old Apple hasn’t figured this out yet but I expect them to copy Microsoft in this regard.”
-Along with the rest of the world that uses currency? I highly doubt it. The gold standard has been around for a while. What MS does do is try to create its own standard…again.
“money is boring.”
-Probably why you don’t have any ZT. Glad to see you stay away from Apple stock, the second best performing stock on the planet over the last 10 years.
” Zune Marketplace will rule over I-Tunes in a year.”
-Didn’t you say that a year ago.
Keep it up ZT, my bullsh*t detector has never gone off so much.
Just to clarify the 4 billion number was announced first at MacWorld which is in January not Feb 26th. All the talk about rate of growth is off by a month. Itunes is doing fine
And Apple says that the majority of people’s music on iPods is from burned CDs?
The record companies must be lying about their revenue then.