Apple has Sold Over 5 Billion Songs on iTunes

[rdowns]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080619/apple_itunes.html?.v=1

Apple says iTunes has sold more than 5 billion songs


CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) -- Apple Inc. said Thursday people have bought more than 5 billion songs from its iTunes online music store.
In addition, Apple said, iTunes customers are now renting or buying more than 50,000 movies daily.

Apple said that based on data from market researcher NPD Group the iTunes store is the largest music retailer in the U.S. based on the amount of music sold during January and February 2008.

More than 8 million songs are available on iTunes, as well as more than 20,000 TV episodes and more than 2,000 movies.

[MacRumors]

Apple announced today that they had sold over 5 billion songs on iTunes. According to data from the NPD, iTunes remains the number one music retailer in the US and features the largest music catalog with over eight million songs.

Apple also reveals that customers are buying and renting over 50,000 movies every day making iTunes the most popular online movie store as well. iTunes now houses over 20,000 TV episodes and over 2,000 films including over 350 in high definition.

Apple first reported it had become the number one music retailer in the U.S. in April.

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[felixkunze]

well done iTunes!

50,000 movies a day. It seems like a big number but if you calculate the revenue and how many people it has to get distributed to, its not all that much. But when you consider that its 50,000 straight out of the door (and beating any other competitor in this regard); there is huge growth potential here.

[gkarris]

So much for Zune....

[xUKHCx]

That is a crazy amount of songs. Does this count the free songs as well?

I have been renting films off there recently and it is quite a nice service, although we only get 48 hours to watch them again which is too short. I'd prefer it if we got to keep it for longer.

[Buschmaster]

Suck it, Wal-Mart.

[matperk]

Originally Posted by felixkunze

well done iTunes!

Agreed. I'm impressed that people are renting that many movies. I didn't think the market was that large for that and we're still only in the early stages of online movie distribution.

[macintel4me]

So if this is true, then why did Steve drop the AppleTV line of business from his WWDC keynote?!?

[f(A)t'kId]

Those are some impressive numbers Good job Apple.

[PlaceofDis]

they've come a long way in the short five years since it started. job well done apple. itunes plus just sweetens the deal, now only if 'itunes plus' just became 'itunes'

[rtdunham]

but how many of those 2,000 movies are available for TV rental? I'm disappointed three-fourths of the time or more when i look for a movie there, and i'm not seeking obscure titles. I also looked at some tv show listings last night on my TV and most were available only as full-season purchases. Five billion songs notwithstanding, there's a long way to go with the videos.

[MacMalv]

Originally Posted by macintel4me

So if this is true, then why did Steve drop the AppleTV line of business from his WWDC keynote?!?

because it was a developer conference. therefor not much on any of their consumer stuff. the iPhone was in there because they were focusing on the 2.0 update and how it worked for developers.

[eastcoastsurfer]

I wonder what Amazon's numbers look like. I usually go there now because they are DRM free, but will still buy from ITMS if it's a DRM free plus track.

[hexonxonx]

Nice! I know I've been doing my part in buying movies lately. Good to see iTunes doing so well.

[rtdunham]

Originally Posted by felixkunze

...It seems like a big number but if you calculate the revenue and how many people it has to get distributed to, its not all that much...

does anyone know how many blockbuster rents each day? Netflix?

[stagi]

Very nice! I have been pretty happy with rentals lately, don't have too much time to rent movies so dropped my blockbuster subscription. For the few rentals I have wanted to watch I have used iTunes and it has worked great.

[paddykev]

Congrats
I'm happy that the UK store finally has movies to rent and buy and looking forward to the iTunes App Store

[mrat93]

Does "most popular online movie store" mean more popular than Netflix (who delivers DVD's) or other download-based movie stores (like Amazon Unbox)?

[DaBrain]

Originally Posted by macintel4me

So if this is true, then why did Steve drop the AppleTV line of business from his WWDC keynote?!?

Good Question! Guess it still is considered a hobby! Man there's so much that the Apple TV could offer! Like a built in Tuner and of course better deals from the movie companies themselves. One can hope!

[gkarris]

Originally Posted by macintel4me

So if this is true, then why did Steve drop the AppleTV line of business from his WWDC keynote?!?

For the same reason he dropped the Macintosh line....

[DaBrain]

Originally Posted by rtdunham

does anyone know how many blockbuster rents each day? Netflix?

I betcha there is a lot of streaming going on now that the Netflix player is out. Like to see those numbers!

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I'm shocked at the number of movie rentals per day they are seeing. That is really good. Way to go iTunes group.

[alphaod]

Yay. At least now I'm sure my DRM music won't go unsupported anytime soon .... *cough* MSN Music...

[pagansoul]

Originally Posted by alphaod

Yay. At least now I'm sure my DRM music won't go unsupported anytime soon .... *cough* MSN Music...

Microsoft got so much flack because of that. They changed the cut-off till something like 2010. So your MSN music still works.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/200...fe-of-msn.html

[srobert]

Originally Posted by macintel4me

So if this is true, then why did Steve drop the AppleTV line of business from his WWDC keynote?!?

My guess would be that it's because AppleTV is not a platform developers can work on. and WWDC is targeted at developers. I could be wrong.

On another topic, as others have pointed out, the percentage of movie available for renting is relatively low. This is especially true for new releases, even more so outside of the US. I would have loved my AppleTV to replace my video store but so far very few new releases are available as rentals. That being said, it's probably not Apple's fault.