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iTunes Store Reaches 28% Overall Share, 70% Download Share of U.S. Music Sales

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Market research firm NPD today released data showing Apple continuing to hold a commanding lead in both overall and digital download music sales in the U.S. for the first quarter of 2010. According to NPD's data, Apple continues to dominate digital download distribution in the U.S. with 70% of the market, up from 69% in the year-ago quarter and well ahead of second-place Amazon's 12% share.

In the overall U.S. music market (physical CDs and digital download distribution), Apple gained four percentage points over the year-ago quarter to snatch 28% of the market. Amazon surged by three percentage points to tie Wal-Mart for second place at 12% of the total market.

Overall, digital downloads now represent 40% of U.S. music sales, up from 35% in the first quarter of 2009.

The data comes as Apple faces a new antitrust inquiry from the U.S. Department of Justice over its tactics in the digital music download market. Just last week, Billboard published data from all of 2009 showing Apple firmly in command of the overall U.S. music market. Still, it remains to be seen whether the Department of Justice will consider Apple's competitive sphere to primarily be digital downloads, where the company holds an overwhelming proportion of sales, or in the overall market, where it also the top spot but with under 30% of the market.

Article Link: iTunes Store Reaches 28% Overall Share, 70% Download Share of U.S. Music Sales
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/05/26/itunes-store-reaches-28-overall-share-70-digital-share-of-u-s-music-sales/
Shouldn't the title be "...Digital Download Share"? CDs are digital too!
 
So people clamor for HD movies on iTunes, but they are all set with the cassette tape audio quality? It would be great to see at least the jump to CD-quality audio on iTunes... sure SACD/HDCD would be nice too.
 
Why do people try to claim iTunes has a monopoly on the music industry? It's kind of pathetic… Oh, Apple is so anti-competative! They have exclusive agreements with labels, OH NOES! :rolleyes:

I guess people forget it takes more than 28% of a market to have a monopoly…
 
Me1000 said:
Why do people try to claim iTunes has a monopoly on the music industry?
Click to expand...

Because it has 70% of the digital trade and can conceivably raise barriers to competitors in the digital arena (and has arguably done so).

That's not hard to figure out.
 
The Day The Music Died

law guy said:
So people clamor for HD movies on iTunes, but they are all set with the cassette tape audio quality? It would be great to see at least the jump to CD-quality audio on iTunes... sure SACD/HDCD would be nice too.
Click to expand...

Yes. We need to pump up the quality. ANYTHING would be helpful. It is getting to the point where some stores do not carry many CDs anymore. So you are stuck with ugh, compressed music....
 
You are allowed to have a monopoly, just not a monopoly AND practices that unfairly initiate or maintain it. Apple just built a better mousetrap. In fact they went down the path of maximal resistance from publishers, that they are now blessing.

One can enter into exclusive contracts and markets and releases and prices. One cannot do so in a way as specified in intimate detail in the anti-trust law.

Apple has not done that.

There is no there there.

Rocketman
 
Me1000 said:
Why do people try to claim iTunes has a monopoly on the music industry? It's kind of pathetic… Oh, Apple is so anti-competative! They have exclusive agreements with labels, OH NOES! :rolleyes:

I guess people forget it takes more than 28% of a market to have a monopoly…
Click to expand...

It's not market share that some people are worried about, (monopolies aren't illegal). Using your weight as the largest player to negatively influence the market, raising barriers, etc. is a potential problem.

More specifically there's questions about Apple's conduct with record companies and Amazon's Daily Deal.

(the anti-trust laws are there to protect consumers, not necessarily competitors)
 
.Andy said:
You've got it backwards. What needs to be ensured is that consumers aren't "punished" for Apple's success through a lack of free and open competition in this market.
Click to expand...

... so consumers aren't punished by Apple for continuing to make Apple successful?

The Unites States of America: Where no success goes unpunished!
 
topmounter said:
... so consumers aren't punished by Apple for continuing to make Apple successful?

The Unites States of America: Where no success goes unpunished!
Click to expand...

No, read up on monopolies. Consumers can be punished by dominant monopolies by price fixing and stifling competition. Apple SHOULD try to become as successful as possible, but not to the detriment of me or you.
 
Sadly (for Apple)....Amazon still beats them on prices and deals 9 out of 10 times.

-Kevin
 
louis Fashion said:
Yes. We need to pump up the quality. ANYTHING would be helpful. It is getting to the point where some stores do not carry many CDs anymore. So you are stuck with ugh, compressed music....
Click to expand...
I totally agree. There's really not good reason we can't download uncompressed music now that broadband internet is pretty much ubiquitous.

That said, I really can't tell the difference between CDs and iTunes' 256kbps AAC's on my stereo equipment. My stereo is hardly audiophile quality, obviously.
 
gwangung said:
Because it has 70% of the digital trade and can conceivably raise barriers to competitors in the digital arena (and has arguably done so).

That's not hard to figure out.
Click to expand...

I think you've got that the wrong way round. CDs are still about 70% of all digital music sales. Analog is probably less than one percent.
 
bloated and unusable

iTunes is the most bloated and popular software today. If you want to know what it is like to use dial-up internet, just try navigating through the iTunes store!:(
 
I personally hope the feds find a way to throw the book at Apple. I think Apple has too much control with iTunes and them tying it to more and more things is frankly getting annoying. The fact that you can't initially use an iPad without an iTunes account is lame. The same thing with my iPod touch. I don't even have any music on the thing but yet I've been forced to use iTunes. For the record I only use Pandora on it and other applications. Before we know it you're going to need to have an iTunes account just to register your Apple computers.
 
Cinch said:
iTunes is the most bloated and popular software today. If you want to know what it is like to use dial-up internet, just try navigating through the iTunes store!:(
Click to expand...
iTunes is fast enough, but I agree iTunes Store is slow. Most pages takes a few seconds to finish rendering. I don't whether the bottleneck is the bandwidth requirements or the processing. If it is the latter, my computer is more than 4 years old now. Still, I don't see why the new iTunes Store is so much slower than the old one. They need to optimize it further.
 
gwangung said:
Because it has 70% of the digital trade and can conceivably raise barriers to competitors in the digital arena (and has arguably done so).

That's not hard to figure out.
Click to expand...

But what are these “tactics”? I’m interested in seeing what the real details are.

So far it seems to amount to Apple saying “do an Amazon special promo, OR do an iTunes special promo (like those top banners), but not both at once.”

Either way the label chooses, Apple’s still selling the music, and not telling anyone not to sell on Amazon as well (which would be absurd). Is Apple obligated to specially promote an artist at the same time Amazon does?

Certainly these promotional efforts affect sales, they’re not meaningless. But are they so vital that they amount to Apple crushing Amazon?

mingoglia said:
I personally hope the feds find a way to throw the book at Apple. I think Apple has too much control with iTunes and them tying it to more and more things is frankly getting annoying. The fact that you can't initially use an iPad without an iTunes account is lame. The same thing with my iPod touch. I don't even have any music on the thing but yet I've been forced to use iTunes. For the record I only use Pandora on it and other applications. Before we know it you're going to need to have an iTunes account just to register your Apple computers.
Click to expand...

iTunes is not just music—not for a long time now. It’s also software—including OS updates for your devices. It’s the desktop hub that your device was designed to work with. That’s why you need an account. I don’t think this case has any bearing on that particular gripe.
 
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