iTunes Music Store - 25 Million Songs

[MacRumors]

Apple announced that the iTunes Music Store has now sold over 25 million songs since its launch in April 2003.

The 25 millionth song -- which was purchased on Friday afternoon was Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! by Frank Sinatra.

Apple also released that over $1 million in iTunes online gift certificates and allowances have been purchased since their addition on October 16th, 2003.

 

[kwajo.com]

yippie!

 

[iMax531]

It also says they're on track for 75 million... which is a few les than the 100 million that Jobs was shooting for... so something's gotta kick into gear soon. Hopefully the Pepsi deal will help. It;s a good start though

 

[bommai]

Cool

I thought they just crossed the 20 million line. Good to see them go to 25 million. Just keep it up now.

 

[Java]

sweet

Sounds good to me.

 

[Websnapx2]

I wonder if they are counting the Gift certificates as well in the 25 Million?

 

[Viv]

Still not slowing down then! I bet the others hate it

Viv
PS so who voted negative? why!

 

[whooleytoo]

The 25 millionth song -- which was purchased on Friday afternoon was Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! by Frank Sinatra.

Frank Sinatra bought it? What are the the odds???

 

[yoman]

yes itunes domination

woot

 

[wPod]

iTunes ROCKS!!! But I think we already knew this. What about other services? Does anyone know if they have been keeping up, or have been behind as normal?

 

[JW Pepper]

Apple must be close to their break even point now. I do not believe that this will be an on-gong non-contributor to revenues. Anything this sucessfull must be able to make a profit.

 

[ryme4reson]

Great news, I changed from one click shopping to the shopping cart because I found myself helping out Apple a little to often!

 

[TMay]

Details?

It would be nice to know what the split between mac and pc buyers, singles and albums, and weekly rate of growth since ITMS opened for windows users.

Whither Napster?

 

[jholzner]

Originally posted by ryme4reson
Great news, I changed from one click shopping to the shopping cart because I found myself helping out Apple a little to often!

Haha...I did the exact same thing! Now I review my cart avery week or so and decide if I really want it or not....also help me keep better track of how much I'm actually spending.

 

[Ja Di ksw]

Re: iTunes Music Store - 25 Million Songs

Originally posted by Macrumors

The 25 millionth song -- which was purchased on Friday afternoon was Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! by Frank Sinatra.

Unbelievable, I think that was me!!!!

(wonders how many people actually thought I was being serious until they read this last sentence, or worse, even after they read this last sentence)

 

[mrsebastian]

i know apple has said there's no money in selling music online, but i don't buy it. for sake of argument let's round off the number of songs sold in a year to 100 million. if apple makes a profit of 20 cents per song after all is said and done, that's still quite a bit of revenue! factor in promotions like they're going to have with pepsi and the numbers just get better.

 

[EponymousCow]

Originally posted by iMax531
It also says they're on track for 75 million... which is a few les than the 100 million that Jobs was shooting for... so something's gotta kick into gear soon. Hopefully the Pepsi deal will help. It;s a good start though

Actually, they are selling at 1.5million/week right now. If that rate continued for a year, they would sell 75million over that year. It won't even get them close to 100 million by April.

However, there are many reasons to believe that the weekly rate will continue to accelerate. For one, the iPod seems to be the hot gift this Christmas, and that locks a lot of people into only being able to use iTMS. The other thing is the Pepsi giveaway. Just getting people to try the service when they win a free song means that they have to download iTunes at least. That makes the barrier to further purchases very low. Apple has said they are not counting the free songs towards their goal, but it would help accelerate new sales.

It wouldn't surprise me to see 100 million songs given away, maybe 50 million will be redeemed by a total of 20 million unique customers (I'm just guessing). If 5 million of those customers buy just one album in addition, that is ~50 million (assume 10 tracks per album) new sales for iTMS, which will make up the gap. Apple will have to make damn sure the store stays up and reliable, though.

 

[EponymousCow]

Profit.

Originally posted by mrsebastian
i know apple has said there's no money in selling music online, but i don't buy it. for sake of argument let's round off the number of songs sold in a year to 100 million. if apple makes a profit of 20 cents per song after all is said and done, that's still quite a bit of revenue! factor in promotions like they're going to have with pepsi and the numbers just get better.

Actually, Apple's profit will be at best 10c per song. I think there is money in selling music online, but only if you sell in enormous volumes. That is why Apple is agressively courting the music download buisness. They have a mechanism to make short term profits off of it (selling iPods), while running the music store at a break-even level for a few years. At some point, iPods will become commodities (much like the walkman did), but by then Apple will be selling $1billion a year and reaping a $100 million profit. Then they can sell iPods at low margins to encourage people to download music.

That's my (unprofessional) analysis of Apple's profit strategy off of music.

 

[Bear]

Originally posted by EponymousCow
Actually, they are selling at 1.5million/week right now. If that rate continued for a year, they would sell 75million over that year. It won't even get them close to 100 million by April.

However, there are many reasons to believe that the weekly rate will continue to accelerate. For one, the iPod seems to be the hot gift this Christmas, and that locks a lot of people into only being able to use iTMS. The other thing is the Pepsi giveaway. Just getting people to try the service when they win a free song means that they have to download iTunes at least. That makes the barrier to further purchases very low. Apple has said they are not counting the free songs towards their goal, but it would help accelerate new sales....

Add to the above the factor of the iTunes Music store being available in other countries. This will also help the purchase rate increase.

 

[jncrow]

OTHER SERVICES

Originally posted by wPod
iTunes ROCKS!!! But I think we already knew this. What about other services? Does anyone know if they have been keeping up, or have been behind as normal?

Think this usatoday.com article is very good for that. USAtoday itunes article

 

[El Dandy]

do the math, it's not much money, say for agument's sake this year they make their goal and sell 100,000,000 song. At .20 each of profit, that onle 5,000,000 bucks. For something on this large a scale for it to bring in a maximum of 5 million bucks a year isn't really all that much.

 

[frankly]

Originally posted by EponymousCow
Apple has said they are not counting the free songs towards their goal, but it would help accelerate new sales.

Apple never said that they weren't counting the Pepsi giveaway songs in their total songs sold count. In fact, they said exactly the opposite. When Steve Jobs laid out their goals of wanting to hit 100 million songs he then said one of the things that will help us reach that goal is... and he talked about the Pepsi giveaway.

The Pepsi giveaway is being given away by PEPSI, not Apple. Pepsi will have to pay Apple for every song that someone redeems. All 100 million songs are not going to be redeemed but I think a decent portion of them will be.

Later, Frank

 

[blogo]

Also remember that the service is US-only at the moment.

 

[El Dandy]

Originally posted by frankly
Apple never said that they weren't counting the Pepsi giveaway songs in their total songs sold count. In fact, they said exactly the opposite. When Steve Jobs laid out their goals of wanting to hit 100 million songs he then said one of the things that will help us reach that goal is... and he talked about the Pepsi giveaway.

The Pepsi giveaway is being given away by PEPSI, not Apple. Pepsi will have to pay Apple for every song that someone redeems. All 100 million songs are not going to be redeemed but I think a decent portion of them will be.

Later, Frank

Alright, alright, we had this argument in the 20 million songs post, let's not start it up again

 

[spencecb]

This is refreshing to see Apple the market leader in certain areas for once...starting with the iPod, and now with the iTunes Music Store...way to go, Apple!