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iTMS Downloads Top 200 Million
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Stella said:
Using Apple's press release dates and figures, I threw together a rough chart showing the number of downloads per day. To compute this I just took the increase from one announcement to the next and divided it by the number of days between. The values are plotted on the second date.
As the chart shows, the purchase rate is speeding up.
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ebow said:
yeah, i got the same curve. i'm trying to figure out what to attribute the little spike at the one year anniversary... i think it may be the pepsi promotion, but my memory is fuzzy. it's not windows iTMS. it could be the mini..? or holiday iPodders from '03 finally getting around to buying music?
Combined, definately.Yvan256 said:
It still surprises me that it was so soon after the big 100m, and it seems kinda nice to know that the 200mth song was part of the cross promotional U2 thing.
Three years time there'll be the billionth ... time is just flying.
Well... you can bet Steve Jobs does and we'll know about it at the next conference in January. Of course, by then, the number might be Two Hundred-FIFTY Million! Way to go, Apple!Fredstar said:
Awesome! I hope it's 400 million by next July. Apple deserves kudos for making such an awesome, and legal, interface for purchasing digital music. It can only get better from here, and I'm not complaining about how it is now. 
JGowan said:
They have done a marvelous job, i have to say it again
By MWSF imagine all those new ipod owners thinking "oh how kewl is using itunes" and my ipod and how easy it is to download any song i want at any time for a reasonable price.
I hope the download figure will over 250 mill because that graph would become exponential!
How's the fit on that versus exponential growth? It should fit exponential better than a quadratic...
also, as per that earlier comment, is the rate of sales increasing or decreasing.... of course it's increasing!!! The question is, is the rate of growth increasing or decreasing. More likely, it's is it holding steady, as it is a HUGE rate of growth, (rate of growth being say, 20% increase per year or month), or is it leveling off? I'll play around with the stats in a few minutes.
Anyway, I just want to know what this means by market share and by growth rate. Either way, though, I'd say this market has enough more growth in it that even if apple is surpassed in market share, we can still expect long term a raw number of songs of several hunded million a year.
Still, all the profit is in the ipod. But with a closed platform... could be major, major money for apple. And, you know, a nice place for microsoft to pour dough and never end up getting money from, at least compared to the other divisions of the company, because they don't do the hardware. Internet explorer, anyone? Of course, it'll suck just as much, but it will also make microsoft just about as much money.
One other fun number-200 million songs is about enough (correct my arithmatic) to fill up 20,000 40 GB ipods. Surprisingly small, given the number of ipods sold to date (but mp3's are so much more common) but surprisingly large, too, I think given how big 20,000 is.
Anybody know the number of songs in the catalog, now? (how do napster et al. compare?)
EDIT: sorry, should have read whole thread first.
also, as per that earlier comment, is the rate of sales increasing or decreasing.... of course it's increasing!!! The question is, is the rate of growth increasing or decreasing. More likely, it's is it holding steady, as it is a HUGE rate of growth, (rate of growth being say, 20% increase per year or month), or is it leveling off? I'll play around with the stats in a few minutes.
Anyway, I just want to know what this means by market share and by growth rate. Either way, though, I'd say this market has enough more growth in it that even if apple is surpassed in market share, we can still expect long term a raw number of songs of several hunded million a year.
Still, all the profit is in the ipod. But with a closed platform... could be major, major money for apple. And, you know, a nice place for microsoft to pour dough and never end up getting money from, at least compared to the other divisions of the company, because they don't do the hardware. Internet explorer, anyone? Of course, it'll suck just as much, but it will also make microsoft just about as much money.
One other fun number-200 million songs is about enough (correct my arithmatic) to fill up 20,000 40 GB ipods. Surprisingly small, given the number of ipods sold to date (but mp3's are so much more common) but surprisingly large, too, I think given how big 20,000 is.
Anybody know the number of songs in the catalog, now? (how do napster et al. compare?)
EDIT: sorry, should have read whole thread first.
jxyama said:
dontmatter said:
it's not exponential. the first year or so of numbers make the function not fit very well for the second year on... (to be exponential, even the amazing growth of iTMS in the second year has not been enough.) the second year numbers alone, though, is a good exponential fit...
the rate of growth of sales? like the second derivative? since quadratic function fit well, it's been pretty much a constant, i imagine.
According to CNN...
Today Lou Dobbs reports that iPods are one of the hottest selling Christmas gifts this year, and there is an expectation that Apple will sell a total of 4 million units for the Christmas season alone.
I have no idea what space of time is considered "the Christmas season", but I would speculate its Oct-Dec.
I don't know what iPod sales figures are to date, but this is one mighty impressive number. Of course, this should cause a nice spike in ITMS sales as people want to get some tunes onto these lil guys.
Hopefully Apple is doing something smart inside the iPod boxes now to convince people to get onto the store quickly. A coupon for some free tunes, for example, would be good. Been a while since I have opened an iPod box, so dont know what the current setup is.
Today Lou Dobbs reports that iPods are one of the hottest selling Christmas gifts this year, and there is an expectation that Apple will sell a total of 4 million units for the Christmas season alone.
I have no idea what space of time is considered "the Christmas season", but I would speculate its Oct-Dec.
I don't know what iPod sales figures are to date, but this is one mighty impressive number. Of course, this should cause a nice spike in ITMS sales as people want to get some tunes onto these lil guys.
Hopefully Apple is doing something smart inside the iPod boxes now to convince people to get onto the store quickly. A coupon for some free tunes, for example, would be good. Been a while since I have opened an iPod box, so dont know what the current setup is.
if anyone else wants to play with fits and numbers, here are the apple press releases on iTMS.
date days since iTMS launch songs sold (in millions)
12/16/04 598 200
10/14/04 535 150
7/12/04 441 100
4/28/04 366 70
3/15/04 322 50
12/15/03 231 25
9/8/03 133 10
6/23/03 56 5
5/14/03 16 2
5/5/03 7 1
4/28/03 iTMS launch
date days since iTMS launch songs sold (in millions)
12/16/04 598 200
10/14/04 535 150
7/12/04 441 100
4/28/04 366 70
3/15/04 322 50
12/15/03 231 25
9/8/03 133 10
6/23/03 56 5
5/14/03 16 2
5/5/03 7 1
4/28/03 iTMS launch
jxyama said:
Here's my chart for total downloads with an exponential trendline. Like you said, it doesn't fit well after the 12 July 2004 point. I had to remove the store opening (downloads = 0) to get exponential as a trendline option. Oh, and while I emphasized the equation in the image, now that I actually read it I realize it's pretty daft because of Excel's date numbering system.
Update: if you consider just the previous year, then the curve is much closer to exponential. See the second attached image.
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I wonder: Are gift certificates counted when they are purchased, or when the song is downloaded? If it's a purchase thing, then these are inflated numbers thanks to x-mas. If it's downloaded.... there should be quite a nice spike for january, and of course the last 6 days of december.
Of course, the language here is interesting- if it is "200 million songs downloaded" then we don't have all the songs included that have already been paid for in gift certificate form, but should have the free downloads, while if it's "200 mill purchased" we don't have the free downloads inflation, but do have the inflation based on certificates....
Also, any report on apple's stock price? This above or below what wall st. was expecting?
Of course, the language here is interesting- if it is "200 million songs downloaded" then we don't have all the songs included that have already been paid for in gift certificate form, but should have the free downloads, while if it's "200 mill purchased" we don't have the free downloads inflation, but do have the inflation based on certificates....
Also, any report on apple's stock price? This above or below what wall st. was expecting?
dontmatter said:
the fact they announce which song was the 200 millionth (or any other occasion) probably implies that the song is counted when it is downloaded. so unused gift certificates aren't part of the number.
also, wall street doesn't forecast on iTMS sales numbers. they'll forecast on company earnings and such. stock prices may go up and down based on how the company did against those expectations. in a larger picture, when iTMS hits a certain milestone download is a fairly inconsequential to apple's overall health as a company.
That's probably true technically, but not necessarily as far as Wall Street sees it; if the announced iTMS milestones indicate a rapidly increasing growth rate, there are investors who will extrapolate that to mean that the iTMS will eventually become a big chunk of business for Apple--perhaps even directly, or in terms of iPod sales as Apple claims. This could, in turn, push the stock price up, as investors factor in the potential value of the stock a year or two from now if the iTMS were to be grossing $1BN/year or something.jxyama said:
These numbers will of course be reflected in Apple's financial statements, but anything that generates buzz about a company or serves as an early indicator of future runaway success will affect stock price.
Heck, you could well get dotcom-style investors who think "I want to get in on the ground floor of the downloadable music business." when they see a number like 200M songs sold, and they might buy whoever looks the most promising in that space, even if that company happens to have computers as its main business.
dontmatter said:
I don't know how gift certificates or even allowances could be included since they are not for a certain number of songs but instead for a certain number of dollars. Whole-album vs. individual-track purchases (not all albums are $9.99), etc. affect, in a small way, how many songs you can buy.
Yvan256 said:
Only in name. Think of them as ants under Apple's giant feet. Think of them as ants under Apple's pesticide sprayer.
My graph:
Code:
/\ --Now
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| --Start
Downloads goes up faster and faster.As you can see, I didn't use fancy-shmancy Excel. Nope. I did it the old fashioned way...