iTMS Downloads Surpass 300 Million [Archive]

MacRumors

Mar 2, 2005, 08:54 AM

In a press release (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/mar/02itms.html), Apple stated that the total purchases and downloads from the iTunes Music Store have topped the 300 million mark.

Additionally, the store is now offering the exclusive single “Across the Universe,” which debuted at number 22 on the Billboard top 100 Singles chart despite being distributed only through the iTMS.

“We’re honored to offer “Across the Universe” exclusively on the iTunes Music Store with all proceeds going to tsunami survivors and their families,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Applications.

swissmann

Mar 2, 2005, 08:58 AM

How are the others doing I wonder? Good job apple.

azdude

Mar 2, 2005, 09:02 AM

Rate of sale is still increasing! :D

http://www.jerrod.us/iTMSSales03022005.jpg

Jerry Spoon

Mar 2, 2005, 09:09 AM

Thanks for the graph azdude. I was wondering if sales were still as brisk as they have been.

vitrector

Mar 2, 2005, 09:10 AM

was there not also a 250 mill press release? just another possible datapoint...

go iTunes, go

coumerelli

Mar 2, 2005, 09:10 AM

500 Million by year's end...any takers?

tutubibi

Mar 2, 2005, 09:14 AM

Rate of sale is still increasing! :D

...

But not by much.

Dec 16 - Jan 24, 50 mil songs = 1,28 mil a day
Jan 24 - Mar 2, 50 mil songs = 1,35 mil a day

I think it's slowly stabilizing to around 1,3 mil a day. For a next bug jump we would have to wait for new stores.

wordmunger

Mar 2, 2005, 09:17 AM

500 Million by year's end...any takers?
That's not much of a bet. At 1.35 million songs/day, it will only take 148 days to accomplish that, and there are over 300 days left in the year. Now 1 Billion by the end of the year, that would be an accomplishment!

edit: Tutubibi -- I think it's impressive that the rate of sales has climbed, even though we're now past the Christmas season. I think that means we'll continue to see that rate climb, maybe even to 2 or 3 million a day by the end of the year.

iJaz

Mar 2, 2005, 09:20 AM

And we still don't have it in Sweden... :(

corywoolf

Mar 2, 2005, 09:20 AM

no surprise to me at least, I wish it would hit a billion by years end. Oh well, guess thats pretty unrealistic. So is itms making more money then CD sales? I would guess not, but maybe someday.

Trowaman

Mar 2, 2005, 09:28 AM

good chart azdude, BUT, you have some errors. UK, France, and Germany was in may or june and Pan-euro store was in October. nice chart though.

ASP272

Mar 2, 2005, 09:28 AM

AWESOME! So I ask again, Why hasn't Metallica, Evanescence, and all the other hold out bands not joined up. It's now become ridiculous to say they want to "preserve the integrity of the album". Please! That just means you might have some songs that suck and you want people to be forced to buy them! They better jump on this band wagon before it totally leaves them behind. Until they get into a legal site like iTMS, they're just going to continue to get pirated, because nobody wants a CD collecting dust when they have all their music on digital players like the iPod! When will they ever learn? Isn't millions and millions and millions of dollars (based on iTMS sales) enough convincing to stop the insanity! OK, sorry about the rant, but I still can't believe any music company or musician(s) would not want to join after seeing the success of this format and the profits which can be reaped from it. Go Apple! Rock on! :D

Mitthrawnuruodo

Mar 2, 2005, 09:28 AM

Good...

Now where is iTMS Norway...?

E.g.: Why can they sell Norwegian artists (http://www.dailytunes.com/songs/20050301214127.html) on iTMS in other countries but not in Norway... that really resembles a vacuum cleaner... :(

the_mole1314

Mar 2, 2005, 09:28 AM

I'd put my money down on 800 million by years end, 1 billion by MacWorld SF.

MhzDoesMatter

Mar 2, 2005, 09:30 AM

But not by much.

Dec 16 - Jan 24, 50 mil songs = 1,28 mil a day
Jan 24 - Mar 2, 50 mil songs = 1,35 mil a day

I think it's slowly stabilizing to around 1,3 mil a day. For a next bug jump we would have to wait for new stores.

Also, since when is a revenue jump of 6.9 mil a day over a month not that much?
(Completely ignoring the invisible relatively in your statement)

-Hertz

ziwi

Mar 2, 2005, 09:32 AM

Great success - I see it continuing unless Apple lets the industry jack up the prices and in turn has to go over the .99 per song.

Dave00

Mar 2, 2005, 09:33 AM

john_satc

Mar 2, 2005, 09:34 AM

thats great!
i bought my first songs through iTMS last night, J Los new album so I like to feel I have contributed towards that :rolleyes:

Applespider

Mar 2, 2005, 09:36 AM

good chart azdude, BUT, you have some errors. UK, France, and Germany was in may or june and Pan-euro store was in October. nice chart though.

UK/France/Germany was 15 June (having checked to see the earliest iTMS purchased music I have)

I wonder if the billion (US rather than UK) by end of the year is an unofficial target? With the growth the iTMS is seeing (not including opening new stores), it might just be possible since if it slows down at 950m or so in December, they just have to announce what the prize for the billionth song will be!

And all those new iPod owners at Christmas may still be transferring current CDs primarily rather than downloading. Even my mother asked me how to go about buying albums and she doesn't own an iPod!

TheMasin9

Mar 2, 2005, 09:41 AM

500 Million by year's end...any takers?

Fo sho. Ill take that bet, and raise you 50 mil. actually, ill bet we see 600 mil by the end of 2005. that is kinda hard to fathom, 600 million songs by the end of 2005. but at a million songs a day+ its very very possible.

benpatient

Mar 2, 2005, 09:47 AM

that Tsunami song was one of the worst things I've ever heard. It was so awkward and forced.

that line about "despite only being available for download on iTunes" isn't actually correct.

CBS or whoever had it on their own website for free download, too. After you downloaded it (for free), you got an option to donate some money to the Tsunami.

This is all well and good, but where is the Worldwide Benefit Concert for Sudan?

SiliconAddict

Mar 2, 2005, 09:50 AM

And watch it all come tumbling down if the RIAA has its way with price increases. :mad:

tutubibi

Mar 2, 2005, 09:50 AM

Also, since when is a revenue jump of 6.9 mil a day over a month not that much?
(Completely ignoring the invisible relatively in your statement)

-Hertz

...
edit: Tutubibi -- I think it's impressive that the rate of sales has climbed, even though we're now past the Christmas season. I think that means we'll continue to see that rate climb, maybe even to 2 or 3 million a day by the end of the year.

Don't get me wrong, I am glad to see iTMS grow. There is still huge untapped market in existing iTMS countries as well as expansion to new countries. So it will grow even further.
All I wanted to say is that growth rate is slowing down. We will not see 100% growth like when store went from Mac only to PC too.

MacDanny

Mar 2, 2005, 09:54 AM

I think the press release meant "purchased and downloaded" to distinguish itself from "just downloads" which would include free songs or "just purchases" which would include gift certificates but not downloaded. Soooo I'm guessing Apple isn't playing games with the "purchased and downloaded".

iGary

Mar 2, 2005, 09:57 AM

I wonder if Napster is doing the math this morning... :eek:

iAlan

Mar 2, 2005, 10:01 AM

In terms of music market size, a store in Japan will see quite a big jump in sales, me thinks...but when...and how much per song.

I think the only reason we don't have a store here is the crappy ego-centric, arragant and self centered music companies in Japan - at 3,000 yen for a Japanese artist CD (about $30) I don't know why the music buying public takes this up the you-know-what, and the music is generally crap.

If only Apple can get an agreement in place, I am sure it is not from a lack of trying.

Sorry for the rant, and well done Apple on 300 million...

virividox

Mar 2, 2005, 10:09 AM

good graph, well lets just hope the growth stays steady :)

Yvan256

Mar 2, 2005, 10:11 AM

Fo sho. Ill take that bet, and raise you 50 mil. actually, ill bet we see 600 mil by the end of 2005. that is kinda hard to fathom, 600 million songs by the end of 2005. but at a million songs a day+ its very very possible.

At the current rate (1.35 million a day) plus the number of days left in the year (~300 days) I'd bet more around 405 millions more songs, for a total of around 905 millions. There's a chance it could hit 1 billion, especially with the new iPod shuffle and lower iPod prices (and better battery life, which was about the only thing people complained about).

dongmin

Mar 2, 2005, 10:12 AM

1 billion by the year's end seems unrealistic, but 750 mil might be within reach. (300 mil now + 1.5 mil a day for the next 300 days)

There was a rumor of iTMS Latin America. Not sure what the market is like in those countries for downloaded music but it's potentially a huge market. also, we don't have a iTMS Japan yet which I bet will be a big seller once it opens.

Some speculate that Apple will sell 4-5 million ipods this year (or is that 4 mil ipod shuffles alone?). iPod sales should accelerate iTMS downloads. 2 mil downloads a day doesn't seem unrealistic by the year's end. Apple may be targetting 1 billion for the 3-year anniversary of the store (about 420 days from now), which would be pretty sweet.

$600 mil a year in revenues from music downloads isn't too shabby, even if the profit margins are razor thin.

SiliconAddict

Mar 2, 2005, 10:12 AM

To be fair those number could be misleading. Obviously the numbers are going to grow as Apple opens up iTMS to new markets. The question I have is how are sales doing here in the States since the store opened. That is a graph I would really like to see. :confused:

BlueDjinn

Mar 2, 2005, 10:24 AM

This one doesn't include the "new country" dates, but does include the "average per day" numbers for each time period:

http://brainwrap.com/otherstuff/itms_sales.gif

I got all of the numbers from Apple press releases except for the 13 million and 230 million figures, which were announced by Jobs at the iTMS for Windows launch and this years' MWSF keynote respectively.

Note that there actually has been a slight dip in the rate since January, but it's actually the other way around--the first few weeks of January had a brief *spike* while thousands of gift certificates were traded in, new iPod recipients went nuts with their new toys, and so forth.

At the current rate, they should hit 375 million by the 2-yr. anniversary (April 28, 2005) and around 700 million by years' end...but they could indeed break 1 billion if the rate keeps ramping up...

evansls

Mar 2, 2005, 10:33 AM

If the pace can be met, Apple will probably reach a billion sold by Fall 2005 (maybe winter). To some degree I'm pleased that Apple is doing so well. I love the fact that if I want to share an iMovie of mine online, the majority of the time people already have QuickTime installed on their PCs, because iTunes is installed. I remember how annoying it was 2 years ago when PC people I knew hated the idea of putting Apple software on their computer and now they do it with no problem! Bizarre how their love for the iPod can influence such a dramatic change!

I guess the whole one music store idea is starting to annoy me a bit even though I love and always praise the iTunes music store for ease of use and innovation! I guess to help put my thoughts into perspective, imagine if you could only play DVDs on a single brand name DVD player? Imagine you could only play CDs on a single brand CD player? Imagine if you could only buy music from Best Buy!

I guess the argument could be is why don't Playstation 2 games play on an XBox or Nintendo? You're right! It makes perfect sense why Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have titles available only (sometimes temporarily like Grand Theft Auto titles) for their systems. *cough* Halo, which was originally to be a Mac title *cough* Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony want fans to buy their machines, because of the exclusive titles! Everyone's in the business of making money! So in a sense, that's the same approach I see Apple doing with their store and the iPod. The music are the games and the iPod is the video game system. Makes sense, right? But still - I just wish I could take my iPod elsewhere to other online stores to purchase music, because I like the freedom of purchasing online rather than the store! It's so much cheaper and easier, which is why I purchase so much online! Eventually I'm sure this will change and I'm sure another reason behind this is the music downloads don't equal a lot of revenue. Apple has even said this and the store compliments the iPod, because it sells iPods. (or the othe way around) I can just see this biting Apple in the end, so I hope one day (soon) they do decide to license the DRM to other stores. Anyway...

nbs2

Mar 2, 2005, 10:36 AM

Does this include the boost that the current Pepsi promotion is providing? If so, I'm wondering if the pace will slow down some after may 23. While not much of a sample, I've seeen my rate of "purchases" climb significantly this last month as I continue my miraculous winning streak (currently at 9).

alfismoney

Mar 2, 2005, 10:48 AM

If sales are at 50 million a month in February, a notoriously sluggish time for selling anything, hitting 1 billion by christmas is a plausable goal. The iPods are going to see dramatic improvements by year's end which will spike sales again, as will opening the music store in more countries (Asian/Australian markets). I'd put money on this being the sales goal in Cupertino.

sinisterdesign

Mar 2, 2005, 10:51 AM

I wonder if Napster is doing the math this morning... :eek:

at Napster HQ:
"uh, let's see....carry the two, add that...six plus three...uh, eighh..no, nine. take away the denominator, factor in costs, divide by pi...HEY GUYS, WE'RE ONLY $28 MILLION IN THE HOLE!"

"let's run another Super Bowl ad!!! what do you mean we have to wait until next year??!?"

:D

lalcan

Mar 2, 2005, 10:52 AM

1 billion by the year's end seems unrealistic, but 750 mil might be within reach. (300 mil now + 1.5 mil a day for the next 300 days)

There was a rumor of iTMS Latin America. Not sure what the market is like in those countries for downloaded music but it's potentially a huge market. also, we don't have a iTMS Japan yet which I bet will be a big seller once it opens.

There are some 500 millions in Latin America, most of us have less than 40 years, and most of us LOVE music,-specially if you've seen those brazilian girls dancing- ;) if the iTMS wants to reach a billion by year's end, it only has to open a iTMS regional store down here.

I can play the reason card or i can even beg if Apple remains skeptical about it :(

Macmaniac

Mar 2, 2005, 11:11 AM

buryyourbrideau

Mar 2, 2005, 11:15 AM

thats a whole bunch of money

katchow

Mar 2, 2005, 11:22 AM

can someone tell me, are we talking about the Beatles "across the universe"? did i miss something? how did they pull off that license? aren't apple and apple records still at it?

p03

Mar 2, 2005, 11:25 AM

This is a RUMORS site for chrissakes. Stop reporting news. You think you're MacMinute?

Sheesh.

gorkonapple

Mar 2, 2005, 11:25 AM

What happens if you buy it with a Pepsi Cap? :D

louden

Mar 2, 2005, 11:25 AM

Other than the free Pepsi Tunes.

Am I alone, or are there others who want a losseless format before they're willing to pay for a download? I can't imagine buying a lower quality song, with no option to every get better quality out of it.

What happens if home audio changes in the next few years, and the lossy formats used by iTunes today turn to shrill?

I can always lower the quality if I start with lossless. Let me decide.

Rower_CPU

Mar 2, 2005, 11:27 AM

This is a RUMORS site for chrissakes. Stop reporting news. You think you're MacMinute?

Sheesh.

Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Rumors and News You Care About

:rolleyes:

morespce54

Mar 2, 2005, 11:46 AM

Am I alone, or are there others who want a losseless format before they're willing to pay for a download?

You are right. Even if I bought a few, this is my biggest concern...
For now, I still convert my CDs in MP3's (that will be someday outdated but has been around for a while...) But I have no choice regarding iTMS...

I guess you can only hope that (someday) they will come up with an audio-losseless-to-whatever software...

Sayhey

Mar 2, 2005, 11:49 AM

The last I heard Apple had projected iTMS Japan by mid-2005, but that is the only hard, if you can call that hard, evidence of iTMS expansion plans. Anyone know of others in the works?

As to the passing of the 300 million mark, if Apple could keep up with the demand for the iPod shuffle and the rest of its newly revamped line of players, then 1 billion by year's end doesn't sound out of the question.

dongmin

Mar 2, 2005, 12:47 PM

I happy to say through gift certificates I have contributed 60 songs to that total:) I would not be suprised to see 750 Million if more stores are announced, they really should get ITMS China, Korea, and Japan, that is a huge untapped market.I think Japan is potentially a huge market but I'm not sure about Korea or China. In Korea, non-iPod mp3 players rule the market, so there isn't much spill-over effect from the iPod. In China, I doubt consumers will pay anything close to $.99 a song when you can buy pirated DVDs and CDs on the street for less than $1 a pop. China is a huge market, for sure, but the dynamics are totally different. I doubt Apple sells that many Macs or iPods to China.

Wonder Boy

Mar 2, 2005, 12:51 PM

beatles songs should not be allowed to be covered. they turned a beautiful song into trash, just like a perfect circle did to Lennon's imagine.

worst. covers. ever.

Lacero

Mar 2, 2005, 01:07 PM

JGowan

Mar 2, 2005, 01:13 PM

... It's now become ridiculous to say they want to "preserve the integrity of the album". Please! That just means you might have some songs that suck and you want people to be forced to buy them!I agree. But those that want to sell "BY ALBUM ONLY" are able to do that. I've seen it quite a few times. Apple will set it up however they want. The bands just need to get with the program. I can't see why Paul McCartney hasn't jumped all over this. Can you imagine how big a deal (literally) that Jobs would make for an opportunity to have a Beatles iPod with exclusive use of their songs (including some never-released stuff that you just KNOW they have!) It would be awesome! It would blow the U2 promotion away!

dontmatter

Mar 2, 2005, 01:16 PM

But not by much.

Dec 16 - Jan 24, 50 mil songs = 1,28 mil a day
Jan 24 - Mar 2, 50 mil songs = 1,35 mil a day

I think it's slowly stabilizing to around 1,3 mil a day. For a next bug jump we would have to wait for new stores.

Yeah, the rate of downloading is still increasing, but the rate of growth seems to be slipping pretty bad. And, not to be the pessimist, but the rate of growth is really what's important when you're in a market with as much growth potential as this one. The math is pretty basic to show that if, say, napster can sustain a slightly higher rate of growth, but is currently one tenth of the size, it'll completely smash itms in 10 years, anyway. Given that this is still less than 10% of music purchases total, well.... apple needs to keep working hard here, rather than rest on it's laurels.

Anybody got the data for the competition?

Lacero

Mar 2, 2005, 01:21 PM

They got to lower per song prices to $0.89. Doing so, you'd probably see a two-fold increase in song purchases. But this seems highly unlikely.

dontmatter

Mar 2, 2005, 01:23 PM

iTunes needs now to diversify and go after old, rare and live recordings. They need to expand to 5 million tracks available within the next 2 years if they want to compete in a much more competitive marketplace. That would seem to be the natural evolution of iTMS.

Although my goal for iTMS would be to offer every single song available that ever existed.

Eh, they've got a pretty extensive catalog, and while it needs to keep growing at the rate it is, it doesn't need to do more than that. Most of what they don't have wouldn't sell that many copies, anyway.

What I think they really need to do is become a better way to browse and discover music. They sell it perfectly, but other people can compete there pretty easily. If, though, they have really smart software that keeps track of everything you buy, everything you look at and don't buy, how long you look, etc. and do some good statistical analysis of this, they could become not a service for buying music, but for finding and suggesting music. Plus links with radio stations, online reviews, etc. and the fact that by being the market leader, they have so much more data available to them, and hence can give better recomendations....

That's how itms could really, really rock.

superninjagoat

Mar 2, 2005, 01:26 PM

This is not news. It's an arbitrary number, and has little real news benefit. It's a press release. An article that looks at this stated number in relation to other music services, or how iTMS profits are becoming a larger part of Apple's profits would be different.

I come to MR to get the news that I can't get from the "Hot News" page on the apple site.

dontmatter

Mar 2, 2005, 01:27 PM

VIIGemina

Mar 2, 2005, 01:45 PM

Yeah, the rate of downloading is still increasing, but the rate of growth seems to be slipping pretty bad. And, not to be the pessimist, but the rate of growth is really what's important when you're in a market with as much growth potential as this one.

I was disappointed by the announcement.

The time to sell 50 million songs dropped from 39 to 37 days over the previous 50 million. That's less than 3 million more songs in a 37 day period.

Normally I might call that marginal growth, but in the same press release they tout the popularity of the exclusive “Across the Universe” song.

One exclusive song for tsunami relief may have accounted for all the growth. Without this one song, the growth may have been flat or down.

This is troubling give the number of iPods, Shuffles sold just prior.

--Sebastian

wordmunger

Mar 2, 2005, 01:48 PM

I was disappointed by the announcement.

The time to sell 50 million songs dropped from 39 to 37 days over the previous 50 million. That's less than 3 million more songs in a 37 day period.

Normally I might call that marginal growth, but in the same press release they tout the popularity of the exclusive “Across the Universe” song.

One exclusive song for tsunami relief may have accounted for all the growth. Without this one song, the growth may have been flat or down.

This is troubling give the number of iPods, Shuffles sold just prior.

--Sebastian

The previous period included Christmas. Show me a store that INCREASES its sales in the month after Christmas and I'll show you an incredible success story.

shawnce

Mar 2, 2005, 01:48 PM

crap, I guess I misread the graph before this. ignore that post. I thought the number of songs sold per day had increased, but the rate of that increase had slowed down. But a net drop in number of songs sold per day? I'm not liking this.

Consider sesonality into all sales numbers like this. The drop is likely an aberation partly, if not wholy, caused by a spike resulting from fallout from the holiday buying season in the states, etc. If you graph the run rates you see the that holiday seson is really a spike in comparison to the run rates for other periods of time.

manu chao

Mar 2, 2005, 02:00 PM

Eh, they've got a pretty extensive catalog, and while it needs to keep growing at the rate it is, it doesn't need to do more than that. Most of what they don't have wouldn't sell that many copies, anyway.

What I think they really need to do is become a better way to browse and discover music. They sell it perfectly, but other people can compete there pretty easily. If, though, they have really smart software that keeps track of everything you buy, everything you look at and don't buy, how long you look, etc. and do some good statistical analysis of this, they could become not a service for buying music, but for finding and suggesting music. Plus links with radio stations, online reviews, etc. and the fact that by being the market leader, they have so much more data available to them, and hence can give better recomendations....

That's how itms could really, really rock.

Let's hope that what they saved the version number 5.0 for iTunes for.

VIIGemina

Mar 2, 2005, 02:06 PM

The previous period included Christmas. Show me a store that INCREASES its sales in the month after Christmas and I'll show you an incredible success story.

I would expect Christmas to have an impact on iPod sales. I'm not sure that iTunes sales are so seasonal. Were people buying iTunes for Christmas?

I would expect the iPod sales to drive iTunes sales. So are we saying that all the new Christmas iPod owners were done buying music by Jan 24th?

--Sebastian

samiam

Mar 2, 2005, 02:07 PM

From a semilog plot, it looks to me like Apple's right on track for 1B this year:
http://www.physics.umanitoba.ca/~ens/itunes.jpg

azdude

Mar 2, 2005, 02:13 PM

good chart azdude, BUT, you have some errors. UK, France, and Germany was in may or june and Pan-euro store was in October. nice chart though.

You're right. When I added the new point and changed the X scale, the lines didn't move. Oh well... I'm too lazy to fix it.

Daschund

Mar 2, 2005, 02:19 PM

There are some 500 millions in Latin America, most of us have less than 40 years, and most of us LOVE music

Yeah. The only problem, unfortunately, is that most of them rather download music illegaly than to spend money if there was a ITMS Latin America... :(

Daschund

IDANNY

Mar 2, 2005, 02:29 PM

Let's hope that what they saved the version number 5.0 for iTunes for.

Yah lets hope those would be some really cool features.

sw1tcher

Mar 2, 2005, 02:37 PM

I think it's impressive that the rate of sales has climbed, even though we're now past the Christmas season.

I think it might have to do with the first-time iPod owners -- got them as Christmas gifts. They're probably checking out the iTMS and buying a few tunes for the very first time. Plus, I know some people who also received iTunes gift certificates along with their new iPods, so they're pretty much forced to buy something at the iTMS.

And let's not forget about the iTunes/Pepsi promotion going on now. I know I'm buying more soda as a result of it.

rickag

Mar 2, 2005, 02:53 PM

Just wondering what effect the iTunes capable Motorola phone may have on this growth rate?

Let's see here,
add Japan
add South America
add iPods at all price ranges
add Motorola iTunes capable cell phones

Me personally, I think music sales @ Apple should continue their upward spiral for a time yet.

rjwill246

Mar 2, 2005, 03:01 PM

What's with that? On a story this positive

superninjagoat

Mar 2, 2005, 03:31 PM

What's with that? On a story this positive

Good for Apple. I, too, love my iPod, iTunes and iTMS.

However, I voted against the story appearing on MR. It's been a long-standing issue of whether a negative vote is against the story content or the story's appropriateness for the site. I subscribe to the latter. s.n.goat

VicMacs

Mar 2, 2005, 03:33 PM

At the current rate (1.35 million a day) plus the number of days left in the year (~300 days) I'd bet more around 405 millions more songs, for a total of around 905 millions.

/vicmacs throws Yvan a calculator... hrrmmmm.... are you using napster by any chance?

do the math :P

:eek:

runninmac

Mar 2, 2005, 03:33 PM

And let's not forget about the iTunes/Pepsi promotion going on now. I know I'm buying more soda as a result of it.

Yeah i never drank pop but now since this promotion ive drank 15 in a month that is a ton for me. Also i am 15 for 15 thanks to the helpfull tilt trick. :p do the free downloads count when they calculate how many songs were sold?

wordmunger

Mar 2, 2005, 03:35 PM

From a semilog plot, it looks to me like Apple's right on track for 1B this year:
http://www.physics.umanitoba.ca/~ens/itunes.jpg
Wow. Impressive chart! I kinda had a hunch they'd do it this year. We'll see if things keep going this well for Apple. Of course, it's not possible to maintain this sort of sales growth forever, so the question is, when does the pattern start to break?

VicMacs

Mar 2, 2005, 03:35 PM

I agree. But those that want to sell "BY ALBUM ONLY" are able to do that. I've seen it quite a few times. Apple will set it up however they want. The bands just need to get with the program. I can't see why Paul McCartney hasn't jumped all over this. Can you imagine how big a deal (literally) that Jobs would make for an opportunity to have a Beatles iPod with exclusive use of their songs (including some never-released stuff that you just KNOW they have!) It would be awesome! It would blow the U2 promotion away!

I'd get a beatles ipod... with ALL their songs for free of course...

wrldwzrd89

Mar 2, 2005, 03:44 PM

I've only bought 2 songs from the iTMS. I don't have them anymore, and have no desire to re-acquire them, nor do I plan on purchasing/downloading any more songs from the iTMS...since, quite frankly (IMO, of course), there's too much filler junk to sort through to make a purchase worthwhile. This is a problem with the music industry, not the iTMS - the iTMS's continued success might just convince the music industry to change their ways. Guess what happens after that - an even more successful iTMS!

Tulse

Mar 2, 2005, 03:53 PM

Am I alone, or are there others who want a losseless format before they're willing to pay for a download?
It depends on how much it costs, and what the benefits are. On the Canadian iTMS I can purchase an album at home in my PJs for much cheaper than I can buy a CD from a brick-and-mortar store that I would have to travel to (on public transit, through the snow). That difference is valuable to me. So is the ability to purchase single tracks, which saves me money. So is the ability to purchase music that simply isn't available locally.

Also, I spend most of my time listening to music in transit, or in my office. I don't listen to it on an audiophile system, and so the reduced sound quality just isn't noticeable.

Sure, I would like lossless downloads. I would also like mahogany furniture rather than IKEA, and a Hummer rather than taking the subway. But the trade-offs involved simply aren't worth the expense to me. The same is true for music downloads -- to me, lossless formats aren't worth the costs (both in time and convenience). I don't see any point in being dogmatic about lossy vs. lossless -- it's all just a matter of cost/benefit analysis.

What happens if home audio changes in the next few years, and the lossy formats used by iTunes today turn to shrill?.
I don't follow this, given that it is iTunes itself (or the iPod) which is doing all of the heavy lifting -- the sound system essentially just amplifies the input.

Eh, they've got a pretty extensive catalog, and while it needs to keep growing at the rate it is, it doesn't need to do more than that. Most of what they don't have wouldn't sell that many copies, anyway.
Given that it is a digital store, without the overhead of brick-and-mortar, they don't have to sell many copies to make a ton of money of back-catalog. Wired had an excellent article on this, called The Long Tail (www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html), that demonstrated that even obscure items can be purchased often enough to make them highly profitable, especially given that the marginal cost of additional catalog items is pretty close to zero. Also, more popular items can actually drive the sales of less well-known items (through recommendation systems). So it makes quite a lot of sense for iTMS to add as much material as it can, even if some of it may not be purchased all that often.

mapanett

Mar 2, 2005, 04:08 PM

Great. Now if only they'd open the Australian iTMS i'd be happy.

SonySnake

Mar 2, 2005, 04:24 PM

I would expect Christmas to have an impact on iPod sales. I'm not sure that iTunes sales are so seasonal. Were people buying iTunes for Christmas?

I would expect the iPod sales to drive iTunes sales. So are we saying that all the new Christmas iPod owners were done buying music by Jan 24th?

--Sebastian

I got a few iTunes gift cards for Christmas, I definitely had a downloading spree in the days that follow that I don't normally do

rogo

Mar 2, 2005, 04:37 PM

I am inclined to believe a few things:

(1) The data is not real. I, too, track this and did indeed have one forecast that put 300 million at this date. I rejected that forecast in favor of one that had it 9 days ago for a number of reasons... Anyway, I can believe the data only if there is an error in the 230-250 data.

(2) The rate of growth should not be slowing. They are selling ridiculous numbers of iPods. While new countries would be nice, they should increase further a rate of growth that should already be increasing. The more users, the more potential customers.. Even if this is a novelty, they should be selling more songs.

(3) The next data point will help make sense of the graph. April 8 would be bad news. April 9 and beyond would be terrible new... Arpil 5-7 would show a tiny rate of increase... April 4 or better would be appreciably more impressive.

(4) Absent a confirmation of the next milestone at <34 days, I don't see how they can possibly reach 1 billion this year. The rate would need to be ~2.3 million per day when it's currently running -- allegedly -- below 60% of that. Think about it this way... There are 10 months... If we ignore the 230 for a second, there appears to be a gain of 100,000 on the average for each month that passes. If that continues, then the average will be more like 1.8 million / day this year for a total of ~550 million additional leaving the year at 850 million sold to date.

(5) Whether this business is "tracking" will be crystal clear by summer. Apple is either on it's way to selling 5% of the world's recorded music in 2007 or it isn't. If the former, the music arm of Apple will ultimately be worth much more than the rest of the company. If the latter, look for Apple to come out with a Napster-to-Go-like service by early next year. (That might happen anyway. Subscriptions are a fine complement to the selling business and Jobs already knows this... "Pick whichever method you like, Ms. Jane Q. Customer."

wdlove

Mar 2, 2005, 04:56 PM

500 Million by year's end...any takers?

Going by the graph, it looks like a real possibility. So yes, I will. I think that this is just another amazing milestone by iTMS downloads.

Lacero

Mar 2, 2005, 04:58 PM

I'd say a billion songs cumulative by the end of this year. The shuffles, lower priced iPod photos and new iPod minis will make sure 2005 is the year of the iPod. Then more cross-over promotions with Star Wars, and god knows what else, and you have the making of a blockbuster. The only caveat to this projection if the song prices remain at $0.99.

Mike Teezie

Mar 2, 2005, 05:49 PM

Well, I just recently came around to the iTMS, and I've bought two albums this week.

It's quite addicitive, so I can totally see 500 million this year.

spaz

Mar 2, 2005, 06:05 PM

don't forget that every iPod sold grows the potential for iTMS sales. a ton of people got iPods for Christmas (about 4.5 Million, in fact) and even if people don't run to the iTMS and start buying right away, the iTMS is where they're going to be going if and when they start purchasing music online. the buy rate has almost nowhere to go but up, up, up.

xsnightclub

Mar 2, 2005, 06:07 PM

It should be painfully obivous to people that the slight decrerase in rate of growth after mid january can be attributed: to not just the holiday shopping season season ending with an uptick for when people are redeeming the gift cards. But ALSO remember the record companies flood the market with new music for the holidays, leaving little of interest for the january-february releases.

This is done to increase sales and keep music released closer to the Grammys for awards.

So the fact that sales still increased is damned impressive.

FeralCat

Mar 2, 2005, 06:34 PM

Dec 16 - Jan 24, 50 mil songs = 1,28 mil a day
Jan 24 - Mar 2, 50 mil songs = 1,35 mil a day

I think it's slowly stabilizing to around 1,3 mil a day. For a next bug jump we would have to wait for new stores.

Also, since when is a revenue jump of 6.9 mil a day over a month not that much?
(Completely ignoring the invisible relatively in your statement)

-Hertz

Hertz, I don't understand your post at all. 1.35 million - 1.28 million = 70 thousand per day, or $70,000 more per day, not $6.9 million. It's ~$2.2 million more revenue over a 31 day period, so even if you mean additional revenue over the entire month, your number doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, congrats, Apple. I say that the rate of growth can't be sustainable, but as people move from buying CDs to buying digital music over the next 3-5 years, iTMS is going to be a major factor in Apple's brand recognition & consumer impressions. I can only hope that this translates directly or indirectly into more Mac sales & that Apple continues to be an industry leader in design for both computers and consumer electronics.

runninmac

Mar 2, 2005, 06:44 PM

(4) Absent a confirmation of the next milestone at <34 days, I don't see how they can possibly reach 1 billion this year. The rate would need to be ~2.3 million per day when it's currently running -- allegedly -- below 60% of that. Think about it this way... There are 10 months... If we ignore the 230 for a second, there appears to be a gain of 100,000 on the average for each month that passes. If that continues, then the average will be more like 1.8 million / day this year for a total of ~550 million additional leaving the year at 850 million sold to date.

I agree with you there is no way that they are going to reach 1 billion downloads by the end of the year even if they do a massive campaign with and insentive like they did for the 100,000,000. Im thinking that 500 is most accurate and 600 at most. sorry i hate being negative but i think that thats the truth

samiam

Mar 2, 2005, 06:56 PM

If we ignore the 230 for a second, there appears to be a gain of 100,000 on the average for each month that passes. If that continues, then the average will be more like 1.8 million / day this year for a total of ~550 million additional leaving the year at 850 million sold to date.

That's assuming a linear dependence, but if you look at the graphs posted earlier it's much closer to exponential than linear. The doubling time is decreasing a little over time, but it seems to be about 5.5 months. This works out to an increase in the daily rate by about .05% per month. Right now that's about 150,000 songs/day per month, but if the trend continues, it will be increasing by 500,000 songs/day every month at the end of the year.

So, if the current exponential slope continues, it will hit 1B this year.

But, if the exponential slope continues to decrease slowly, as is more likely since the number of stores is saturating, it will fall a little short.

And if Napster takes off, the rate could start to decrease.

ipodmann

Mar 2, 2005, 07:35 PM

thats great!
i bought my first songs through iTMS last night, J Los new album so I like to feel I have contributed towards that :rolleyes:

Well you must be the one contributing big time to the increase in music sales, because I have not bought any songs for over a month. :D

BlueDjinn

Mar 2, 2005, 07:48 PM

OK, call me crazy but I decided to plot out two revamps of the earlier graph: the first one is an enhanced look at total iTMS sales:

http://brainwrap.com/otherstuff/itms_sales_030205.gif

The second one adds total iPod sales into the mix:

http://brainwrap.com/otherstuff/itms_ipod_030205.gif

samiam

Mar 2, 2005, 09:55 PM

there appears to be a gain of 100,000 on the average for each month that passes. If that continues, then the average will be more like 1.8 million / day this year for a total of ~550 million additional leaving the year at 850 million sold to date.

That's assuming a linear dependence, but if you look at the graphs posted earlier it's much closer to exponential than linear. The doubling time is decreasing a little over time, but it seems to be about 5.5 months. This works out to an increase in the daily rate by about .05% per month. Right now that's about 150,000 songs/day per month, but if the trend continues, it will be increasing by 500,000 songs/day every month at the end of the year.

Not that any of this matters a whit, but I should say that by "linear" I meant the time dependence of the rate, which would mean the actual number sold would have a quadratic dependence on time.

For fun I plotted the square root of the number sold, which would be a straight line if the dependence were quadratic. Note that the rate is increasing faster than quadratic, but 900M (30^2) does seem pretty close to the continuation of the trend.

I also tried a cubic dependence by plotting the cube root, and this gave the best straight line yet, with the extrapolation ending at about 800M.

For reference the semilog plot is also attached with extrapolation to 1B. Taken as a whole, this looks like the worst fit, but considering only the last 9 months or so, it looks pretty exponential.

TheMasin9

Mar 2, 2005, 10:28 PM

This means more money for my stoxx. woot

Xtremehkr

Mar 2, 2005, 10:38 PM

A billion is not impossible. It could also depend on the quality of music that comes out in the next year. Releasing music to ITMS seems to be in style these days and enough artists chose to debut their work that way it could increase sales.

There are some big names releasing music soon too. Hip hop seems to hold a permanent position on the most downloaded list (for singles), and there are some big releases coming this year. 50 Cent is expected to sell an incredible amount of copies of his album that is out pretty soon. He's at the top (and bottom) of the list for today on the singles downloads.

I'm not a big fan of hip hop/rap/r&b, but a good year in music would affect the number of songs that I download. It's been a while since anything new and exciting came along.

eazyway

Mar 2, 2005, 11:34 PM

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a subtle difference here between the old numbers reported and the new? I thought the old numbers pertained to number of songs purchased, and new pertained to both purchased and downloaded. Obviously there's a lot of downloads of the Tuesday freebie songs. It'd be important to separate these numbers when estimating the health of the iTMS.

Dave

purchased and downloaded implies both for the same song...thus 300M purchased.

"purchased or downloaded" would mean the those purchased and downloaded plus those only downloaded

rogo

Mar 3, 2005, 01:50 AM

That's assuming a linear dependence, but if you look at the graphs posted earlier it's much closer to exponential than linear. The doubling time is decreasing a little over time, but it seems to be about 5.5 months. This works out to an increase in the daily rate by about .05% per month. Right now that's about 150,000 songs/day per month, but if the trend continues, it will be increasing by 500,000 songs/day every month at the end of the year.

So, if the current exponential slope continues, it will hit 1B this year.

But, if the exponential slope continues to decrease slowly, as is more likely since the number of stores is saturating, it will fall a little short.

And if Napster takes off, the rate could start to decrease.

The average per day still needs to be as high as I said, whatever the function. And while the total has been growing, the rate of increase is now approaching zero. It's hardly exciting to go from 40 days to 37 days to sell 50 million. This is especially true since the last two periods were 2/3 of the prior, approximately (40 vs. 62, 62 vs. 94). The last period was >90% as long. Not good for the curve.

I need the next data point to reset the models, because the 200, 230, 250, 300 data is way too lumpy to be useful.

Poff

Mar 3, 2005, 02:53 AM

And we still don't have it in Sweden... :(

Wonder when it will come to us scandinavians.. :(

sworthy

Mar 3, 2005, 03:37 AM

How is everyone making these graphs? Care to walk me through it in excel (emailing your file would be nice too) - sworthington @ ups . edu (remove the spaces of course)

samiam

Mar 3, 2005, 08:46 AM

The average per day still needs to be as high as I said, whatever the function. And while the total has been growing, the rate of increase is now approaching zero. It's hardly exciting to go from 40 days to 37 days to sell 50 million. This is especially true since the last two periods were 2/3 of the prior, approximately (40 vs. 62, 62 vs. 94). The last period was >90% as long. Not good for the curve.

True, but data points tend to fluctuate, especially around Christmas, and differences fluctuate more, so it's never wise to extrapolate from two or three points. The total numbers don't deviate from the plotted trends by very much, and all the plots seem aimed at near 1B give or take a couple of hundred million.

And 37/40 is not an insignificant reduction: There are 14 intervals of 50 left to 1 billion, and (37/40)^14 is .33, so if the time continues to decrease by this amount for each interval, the last one will only take about 12 days. The total number of days for 14 intervals, based on this assumption, is 303 days, which puts us right at the end of the year.

MOFS

Mar 3, 2005, 09:14 AM

beatles songs should not be allowed to be covered. they turned a beautiful song into trash, just like a perfect circle did to Lennon's imagine.

worst. covers. ever.

What about Joe Cocker's (I think) cover of "With a little help from my friends" - ya know - the one from the Wonder Years?

Or the cover of "Across the Universe" at the end of Pleasantville?

Still - great news for Apple. Now we need more 60s, 70s and 80s stuff on the site and less latino stuff. And no more latino free downloads! :mad:

MacDanny

Mar 3, 2005, 12:36 PM

I FINALLY got my iPod Shuffle 1GB total. When setting it up you get 16 free iTunes songs if you open a new iTunes account. I hadn't heard about that before but that is a great way to introduce iTunes to new users!

Was anyone else aware of this???

sworthy

Mar 3, 2005, 02:58 PM

You actually get the songs with an existing account too... They even had a couple of good ones :)

johnnyjibbs

Mar 3, 2005, 03:14 PM

Good stuff. I've bought about 50 of those.

d.perel

Mar 3, 2005, 04:22 PM

Good stuff. I've bought about 50 of those.
50 iPod shuffles or 50 free songs? :)

rogo

Mar 3, 2005, 04:58 PM

True, but data points tend to fluctuate, especially around Christmas, and differences fluctuate more, so it's never wise to extrapolate from two or three points. The total numbers don't deviate from the plotted trends by very much, and all the plots seem aimed at near 1B give or take a couple of hundred million.

And 37/40 is not an insignificant reduction: There are 14 intervals of 50 left to 1 billion, and (37/40)^14 is .33, so if the time continues to decrease by this amount for each interval, the last one will only take about 12 days. The total number of days for 14 intervals, based on this assumption, is 303 days, which puts us right at the end of the year.

Samian, that's solid math at the end there. I agree, most fundamentally, that extrapolating from 2-3 data point isn't helpful. In fact, that's why when I came up with 37 days for this interval, I rejected it... It "felt" wrong. So I went with the aggressive number and was mistaken (there's a post somewhere hear where I went for 27-28 days).

I think it's the "give or take a couple of hundred million" that's the salient point. If it's 800 million, OK, but not as fabulous as Jobs walking into MacWorld SF next January and saying, "Since we launched a music store to work with these babies (he points to a rack with all versions of the iPod sold to date lined up in it), we've sold a billion songs."

So you see my interest in the next data point. Whether it's a 50 or a 100 (and I think they may stop announcing the 50s anytime), it'll be fascinating to see. Anything >34 days to the next 100 million would be a continuation / acceleration of the trend. So let's see what happens come March 19... Is there an announcement of another 50 million? Or do we wait until April to learn about 400 million....

timster

Mar 3, 2005, 05:17 PM

Great. Now if only they'd open the Australian iTMS i'd be happy.

Seconded.

I suspect foul play on the part of Telstra / NineMSN.

Maybe Apple Australia's former customer, Optus, could teach them how to present a case to the ACCC for investigation...

ekullhu

Mar 3, 2005, 08:59 PM

AWESOME! So I ask again, Why hasn't Metallica, Evanescence, and all the other hold out bands not joined up.

It's even more ridiculous when Lars Ulrich states in an interview on the special features of the Some Kind of Monster DVD that not only does he own an iPod but that he also "subscribes to iTunes"...

chevyorange

Mar 4, 2005, 11:38 AM

It's even more ridiculous when Lars Ulrich states in an interview on the special features of the Some Kind of Monster DVD that not only does he own an iPod but that he also "subscribes to iTunes"...

Man, one of my favorite bands, saw the movie and I seem to have missed that - can you give me an approx hour/minute for this statement?

Adam

ekullhu

Mar 5, 2005, 11:13 AM

Man, one of my favorite bands, saw the movie and I seem to have missed that - can you give me an approx hour/minute for this statement?

Adam

Yeah, it's in one of the film festival Q&A's on the second disc. In the bonus material.

to be exact (I looked it up again) it's:

Disc 2 -> Festivals and Premieres -> sundance press conference -> 3:38

While I'm here, I will still always buy a CD of bands I know and love if it's avaliable as I agree with what other say in regard to a CD being better sound qualilty even though 99% of the time I listen to the AAC version after I've put the album in iTunes. But anyway I'm more interested in the iTMS for getting one off songs, for exploring new music or finding stuff you can't get on CD. But then I'm in Australia, so it's a bit of a mute point.

Kingofthenerds

Mar 5, 2005, 02:12 PM

Wow, why doesn't napster just give up now? They're not making any money, just prolonging the decline. My friend has already stolen thousands of songs from napter (they offer it at our university out of our tuition). The record labels should shut em down.

iAlan

Mar 6, 2005, 09:46 AM

...but i would like to know alittle mor about what is driving growth.

I would be interested to see a graph that shows info about the release date of downloads - by this I mean are more back catalog items being downloaded versus songs released in the last 6 months or so? A majority of new albums are released in the September-October months, leading up to Christmas, and this may impact sales growth.

Additionally, I would like to know how many new iTMS users there are vs new iPod owners? Are we seeing growth from new users or existing users switching from buying CD's less frequently to iTMS more often. I know a lot of iPod owners who still want the CD with the liner notes, cover art, etc. and therefore are not as attracted to iTMS (I know several USAers who are iPod users and have never bought anything from iTMS)

How about general numbers on the increase in people who purchase anything off of the 'net? Are we seeing more internet shoppers in general, and thus potentially more iTMS shoppers?

Lastly, does anyone know how much Apple makes from each $0.99 download. I do not think it would be all that much after factoring in the shares for the record label, the writers and the artists? On an interesting side bar writers too must be happy about any back catalogue sales on iTMS as the income would be welcomed, like when Dolly Parton got herself a huge paycheck on the coattails of Whitney Houston's success with 'I will always love you' and Peter Allen getting his dosh from coining the line 'between the moon and New York city' from Arthur (?) as this qualified him for writing credit!)