iTunes Digital Music Sales Fall 13 Percent as Apple Prepares Beats Music Refresh

[MacRumors]

Apple's digital music sales continue to spiral downward, falling more than 13 percent worldwide thus far in 2014, reports The Wall Street Journal. Last year, digital music sales dropped for the first time since iTunes opened in 2003, falling 5.7 percent year-over-year.

This continued decline is likely one of the reasons behind Apple's $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music earlier this year. Apple may be hoping to offset this drop in digital music revenue with increased subscription revenue from Beats Music.

The plummeting download numbers help illustrate why Apple bought the $10-a-month subscription streaming service Beats Music earlier this year, as part of its $3 billion acquisition that included headphone maker Beats Electronics. Apple is rebuilding Beats Music and plans to relaunch it next year as part of iTunes, according to a person familiar with the matter.

To attract a broader customer base, Apple is rumored to be revamping Beats Music with an expected relaunch of the service slated for next year. The Cupertino company also is pushing for an industry-leading $5 monthly subscription cost that may increase the number of subscribers willing to pay for a premium service.

Apple is not new to the streaming music business, having launched iTunes Radio last year alongside iOS 7. The Pandora-like service has reportedly failed to achieve its goals of spurring listeners to purchase tracks from the iTunes Store despite being bundled on millions of phones in its available regions, and has yet to expand beyond the United States and Australia.

Article Link: iTunes Digital Music Sales Fall 13 Percent as Apple Prepares Beats Music Refresh

 

[Alphabetize]

Yet I've been buying more music from iTunes than ever

 

[MacOSXI]

Maybe because people want high-quality music, not outdated AAC 256 kb/s crap

 

[avanpelt]

Why wait until next year? Every month that passes, Spotify gets more money from me...

 

[Rogifan]

Apple late to the subscription streaming party. Get on it already!

 

[MacOSXI]

Give us at least an Apple Lossless option.

 

[Rogifan]

Maybe because people want high-quality music, not outdated AAC 256 kb/s crap

That's a minority. Subscription streaming is where it's at. If Apple can negotiate something that includes music you can't find on Spotify (e.g Beatles) I'm in.

 

[Menel]

Yet I've been buying more music from iTunes than ever

Me too! Ever since iTunes match.
Turned me legit, buying tracks here and there to refresh and beef up my playlists.

 

[Dougie83]

They shouldn't have given us the U2 album as a gift. If they had billed us all a nominal amount, maybe $10 dollars for the gift no one would have complained.

 

[avanpelt]

That's a minority. Subscription streaming is where it's at. If Apple can negotiate something that includes music you can't find on Spotify (e.g Beatles) I'm in.

Bingo. Apple needs to make their entire catalog available for streaming or it won't be enough to get me to switch from Spotify.

 

[OriginalMacRat]

Bought it All

Everything worth buying from the 80's has already been purchased.

 

[blairh]

The days of purchasing music will eventually be a niche market or something gone completely. You either torrent or subscribe to a service or both.

 

[riverfreak]

Apple needs to drop the objective of trying to drive people to the iTunes Store to purchase music. They should have dropped that requirement years ago.

I think their efforts to muscle in on streaming services are going to be met with a giant meh unless they really nail the interface.

Spotify's newish "My Library" option goes a long way towards making a streaming service feel more like a personal collection. It would only be better if you could change specific metadata, sort order, genre etc for tracks. As-is, I don't have nearly the usability I have of my own personal music collection in iTunes. Still quite good.

 

[postpc]

Does Beats offer an offline mode similar to Spotify?
As much as like a European tech company being successful internationally, I find the Spotify mobile experience to be underwhelming. Why don't we get to see the full song name? So much potential, but poor execution

 

[Jsameds]

Maybe because people want high-quality music, not outdated AAC 256 kb/s crap

You'd be surprised at the amount of people who are still happy with 128kbps MP3

 

[Atlantico]

Everything worth buying from the 80's has already been purchased.

Indeed!

As for the Beats purchase, it's was the nail in the iTunes coffin for me, my interest in iTunes went from low to non-existent.

I don't have iTunes installed any more. I buy music from various sources, internet and even CDs (which offer consistently the greatest value)

 

[cycledance]

Maybe because people want high-quality music, not outdated AAC 256 kb/s crap

you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[SSDGUY]

"The world don’t need any more songs… As a matter of fact, if nobody wrote any songs from this day on, the world ain’t gonna suffer for it. Nobody cares. There’s enough songs for people to listen to, if they want to listen to songs. For every man, woman and child on earth, they could be sent, probably, each of them, a hundred songs, and never be repeated. There’s enough songs.

Unless someone’s gonna come along with a pure heart and has something to say. That’s a different story." -Bob Dylan

Maybe there's too much of everything these days. The constant flow of endless choices becomes fatiguing to me. This year, the time I spend sitting down with a record on the turntable has exceed the time I listen to Spotify or iTunes. I'm enjoying music more now than in quite a long time.

 

[SmileyBlast!]

If could get their over 500 million user to pay $7.99 per month they could make over $3.5 Billion dollars in one year.

So they could charge even less and still pay for the Beats acquisition in under 5 years.

 

[gsmornot]

I gladly paid for Spotify since day one of the service in the US. Last month I decided to stop. I still listen to the free versions radio and iTunes radio but it has come to the point that not only am I not buying music downloads, I'm not buying music at all. I just don't care as much as I used to.

I hope they do something with Beats that draws me back in. I hope it costs less than $10. I'm tired of having a bunch of $10 services each month. I prefer to have an integrated service and a single music app so I'm looking forward to the integration but lets face it. Next year? At the rate of decline in sales they may be too late and may already be too late for all I know. Its not like everything lately has been polished. Release what you have and update as you go. It the new model for business anyhow.

I don't mean to sound negative. I'm not.

 

[BruceEBonus]

Music ended in the Eighties. Albums are dead. As are groups. Only singer songwriters are accepted by the corporations.

Steve Jobs made the iPod which killed the physical side of music. The medium is now virtual.
The ipad killed the computer and keyboard.
And the iPhone ironically ended the wrist watch.

It's a pity of course but that's the price of 'progress' it seems...

 

[MacOSXI]

That's a minority. Subscription streaming is where it's at. If Apple can negotiate something that includes music you can't find on Spotify (e.g Beatles) I'm in.

Yes you're right ! But i do think that a lot of people, audiophiles mostly, abandoned the iTunes Store cause of this, so it might be a factor, even though it's definitely small compared to subscription streaming loss !

 

[RightMACatU]

$x/month for: music subscription, for XM-Sirius, for Cloud storage, for MS Office, for Adobe Product, for Cell Data Plan...

I'm out!
I'm done with the "Just $x/month" BS models

 

[iChrist]

Does Beats offer an offline mode similar to Spotify?
As much as like a European tech company being successful internationally, I find the Spotify mobile experience to be underwhelming. Why don't we get to see the full song name? So much potential, but poor execution

You think Apple will do better. Have you used the Music app?

lol

 

[infiniteentropy]

If could get their over 500 million user to pay $7.99 per month they could make over $3.5 Billion dollars in one year.

So they could charge even less and still pay for the Beats acquisition in under 5 years.

I think you mean "over $3.5 Billion dollars in one month" and therefore "...in under 5 months."

That said, I doubt everyone would pay for it. I doubt I would add this, I already pay for another streaming service.