iTunes sells 2 Million Songs

[nuckinfutz]

Originally posted by nebben123
i'll try it out when the songs are 50c each, or $6 for an album. 256k aac minimum. until then, it's not worth it for me.

i can get most new cd's for $13 or less and not have to worry about quality or spending $1 + my time to burn to disc so i can listen to it in my car.

for now, no thanks apple.

99c a song is too damn expensive when there is no physical medium and the encoding is a paltry 128k aac.

So I assume then you don't use any P2P software for Music?


As for the quality of AAC like MP3 it will continue to be refined as the Encoding and Decoding get better. MP3 hasn't always been as good as it is today.

The fact is if people don't buy in at .99 cents then that reduces the chances of the service getting large and possibly cheaper. I won't stop buying CDs but for that one song from an artist I like..I'd like to support them.

I'm sure there are alot of people who feel like .99 is alot of money as they gleefully stuff their faces with fast food and partake in $4 Beers at the local games.

 

[chewbaccapits]

Originally posted by jxyama
"...Stop complaining about AAC quality. I think the service is aimed at those used to getting mp3's and we know mp3 is not a high quality format...
[\edit]

No kidding...I mean, no one complains how those crappy mp3 sound when they're free, but complain that the better format (AAC) sucks. Isn't this format better than what the competition was or is selling?

 

[spantol]

For what it's worth, I've seen three commercials for the iTunes Music Store this evening. They're rather annoying, but they're out there.

 

[NeXTCube]

Re: Quality of AAC

Originally posted by DrGruv1
Aren't one of the rumors 'an advanced ipod doc to plug into a stereo"

While I mostly use the Mackie's, I have a pair of Paradigm bookshelf speakers in the living room.

Won't people hear the difference from the aac they play from the pod and their own cd's?

-Michael

I have a set of KEF 104|2s with Adcom pre/power amp and CD player. Older stuff, but it sounds okay!

Having music files on the computer, whether in MP3 or AAC format, is all about convenience and portability, as far as I'm concerned. My CDs and LPs have nothing to fear from my Archos Jukebox while I'm home. But when I'm not...well, that's a different story. I'd much rather move a $170 MP3 player with 200 albums on it around than transport 200 CDs.

So, will people hear the difference? Well, uhm, yeah! But that's not the point.

 

[mim]

Originally posted by matznentosh
But we are talking about a product that is sold in quantities that approach a commodity. Apple computers are not commodities. Memory chips are. Music is sold in such great quantities it is a kind of commoditity. Commodities are sold - usually - at lowest cost and highest volume. so every extra coke you sell, or Proctor and Gamble soap, etc., is money for the parent company. So selling extra copies of songs in Japan is money in Sony/Columbia's account. I think that means a potential decrease in margin would be ok, if total sales went up.

You should be right, but you aren't. Music prices are artificially inflated in some countries to protect their local content (this goes for other media too - books, journals, etc). It's price fixing by local companied supported by govenrments.

If it's a good thing or not....well, that is a long and hard debate that no-one has the right answers to. Currently its seen as ok for say, wheat to be deregulated (ie - no import tarrifs), but people obviously feel more protective of music - as it is often an important cultural definition. An example is the French movie industry. The government has huge tarrifs on imported movies. This money goes to grants for the French movie industry. Hence all the really good quality French movies (and their very strong local industry).

The music store will fall under the same regulations (namely parallel import laws). I expect the music to be much more expensive in places like Japan and Australia. Fact of life at the moment.

a.

 

[Ugg]

Originally posted by anthonymoody


Actually, I read this as a pretty large dropoff. 1mm in 7 days, and the 2nd million took 9 days. That's a 29% week over week dropoff.

As for album sales vs/ per track, I think this has as much to do with the fact that many songs are available only as album sales as any other factor.

Don't get me wrong, I wish Apple the best in this endeavor, but basically the business is on a $50 million (top line) run rate, which is a small drop in the bucket for a company which does billions in revenues. Yes, the margins on this business are higher than hardware, but it''ll have to grow monumentally to make a material difference to Apples bottom line.

TM

Of course the "curiosity" factor is going to mean that initial sales are higher. 2 weeks are not indicative of the long term success of the store.

Also, the iPod2 release has meant a huge increase of sales for Apple. One can't discount what the tie in means for hardware sales and therefore much more profitability.

 

[Ugg]

Originally posted by Mudbug
I think that should be 1.1498 dollars.

otherwise, I'm investing in foreign currency now.

Ummm, only in America would you be correct. To the rest of the world 1.000,00 is correct.

 

[Ugg]

I think that Apple is going to have a huge ad campaign later this year. The last big one was the new iMac and switch campaign. So many new things have come out since then but Apple has hardly made a peep. To me, that points to a big campaign before long. Maybe in August when the PPC970s are shipping and iTunes is available for Windoze. Also a big European campaign is probably in the offing, announcing the new Apple Stores and iTunes for Yrup.

Why else would they not be blowing their own horn with so many major changes?

 

[mim]

Originally posted by Ugg
Ummm, only in America would you be correct. To the rest of the world 1.000,00 is correct.

hehe, you're just as bad as them!

What you mean is "To Europe (excluding the United Kingdom but including some European wanna-be's) and some of our old colonies 1.000,00 is correct."

This is why >localisation< (or localization if you're in the states) is an important part of dealing with other nations that American companies have only begun to appreciate in the past few years.

The most famous example is the "Coke is Life" Japanese advert actually translating as "Coke brings your ancestors back from the dead".

 

[Trimix]

ad campaign

over here in europe, apple and the music store were the subject of many news programs on tv. in switzerland we can watch german, swiss, french, italian and austrian programs and i have seen it mentioned on many a station.
moreover every decent magazine, from business to general interest has covered the subject in more than a polite one-liner.
newspapers gave the subject a lot of space too, so that i would say, apple got the hype almost free of charge.
that is what counts - free publicity -
when the things rolls out here then the mac faithfuls will pounce and europe will ROCK

 

[tduality]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac


It might be taxes. I think other than taxes, prices should be, and probably will be the same all over.

Don't think so. VAT in Switzerland is 7.6%. That's almost the same in US, isn't it?

I think prices are higher around here because the market accepts it. I don't expect the music industry to let that extra profit go.

 

[Trimix]

i feel it has more to do with purchasing power than with taxes, but what do i know

 

[Jerry Spoon]

I just saw my first iTMS commercial last night during West Wing (great season finale by the way!) and I asked my wife - who isn't a huge mac fan, but uses ours at home - what she thought of it. She basically had a bunch of questions about what it was and how it worked. Being curious about it is a good thing, but not having enough info and not being intrigued enough to go to Apple's web site isn't. I hope her reaction to the commercial isn't the typical response and Apple had a noticiable increase of hits last night b/c of those ads running. Time will tell.

 

[GulGnu]

"Uh... 1 in 20 people in the US that own a computer today..."

Well, actually, it's even less, as not all Mac users have OS X 10.2.

Regards / GUlGNu

 

[nebben123]

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
So I assume then you don't use any P2P software for Music?

You are correct, I do not. I listen to a lot of non-mainstream music. The Pixies, Air, Throwing Muses, Kruder + Dorfmeister, Pavement, +/-, Boards of Canada, Superchunk, Cat Power, Gang of Four, Spoon, etc to name a few.

And while I probably could find it online (illegally), I actually prefer to support the artists.

However, 99c a track when there is no physical medium, no distribution costs, and the quality (relatively) sucks... it's too much. At 50c a track and 256k AAC, I would do it.

 

[Trimix]

So it is 1 out of 20 in the U.S. MINUS the people without broadband MINUS the users on OS9, MINUS the users who have the mac set-up in the office only, MINUS those who have not heard of it yet.

Looks like a huge untapped potential in the U.S. alone - now imagine select European countries to be added, or Australia for that matter

Merill you are dead dead dead (Looks like I am becoming a Merrill hater )

 

[dongmin]

Originally posted by theFly
Here's a bit to tantilize the possibility of the Windows potential for the iTMS:

...

I believe they are talking about Apple's share of the sales being $20 million, which is roughly $1 billion per year revenue from the service, if that weekly sales averages across a year.

Since Apple makes roughly a third from the sales, $20 million is $67 million gross sales per week.B]

They say $20 mil in sales for Apple, which is pretty clear in meaning $20 mil gross revenues for Apple. That means $1 bil in revenues for the year. 65% goes to the record companies, so Apple's cut is $350 mil a year. Apple hasn't revealed its costs, but I would guess something like $50 mil. So Apple's net profit comes out to roughly $300 mil a year. Not bad for a side business.

 

[jxyama]

1.000,00 is not correct for "the rest of the world." Japan follows the same convention as the U.S., i.e. 1,000.00. Of course, the way Japanese label the number is messed up anyway because Japanese (and Chinese also, I believe, maybe Korean too) count the number by ten thousands, not thousands. 10,000 (or 10.000 in Europe ) is ten-thousand in the U.S. (and elsewhere) but it's one-"ten-thousand" in Japan.

Anyway, in Japan, the domestic versions of albums, which are priced higher for whatever the reason, often contain extra tracks to protect themselves from the imports priced cheaper. For example, back in the day, I bought Pearl Jam's Ten in Japan because I lost the one I bought in the U.S. The Japanese one, which costs nearly $30, contains one extra track compared to the U.S. version.

 

[Trimix]

in reply to jxyama

i do not know the prices in the U.S. but would that album have been around $13 in the shop ? if so you paid $17 for one extra track ?
oh my and some of us are griping about 99 cents

 

[robbieduncan]

Originally posted by GulGnu
"Uh... 1 in 20 people in the US that own a computer today..."

Well, actually, it's even less, as not all Mac users have OS X 10.2.

Regards / GUlGNu

iTunes 4 will run on 10.1.5. Not sure about Quicktime 6.2 though...

 

[frinky23]

Originally posted by tduality
Don't think so. VAT in Switzerland is 7.6%. That's almost the same in US, isn't it?

I think prices are higher around here because the market accepts it. I don't expect the music industry to let that extra profit go.

Yeah, more or less. Sales tax in the US varies on location. In some states, it is zero. In others, it is higher. And to make matters more confusing, some states allow cities and counties to impose additional sales taxes, and the product you buy and the intended use changes the tax rate. For example, in the city next to mine, if you buy a meal at a restaurant and eat it inside the restaurant, the tax is something like 8.75%. However, if you ordered the meal to go and took it home, the tax would be 9.25%.

One major difference here in the states is that prices are listed without tax included. So if I downloaded a song, I would pay $0.99 plus the applicable tax (which Apple will calculate for me based on my address - this is part of the reason they need an address to use the service).

 

[herr_neumann]

Anyone else wonder how many of these tracks have been bought by Jobs or other apple folks? I mean what is droping a million bucks on music down loads when it makes the stock climb $5 a share? And it sure has impressed the music industry folks..... Just a thought.

 

[Ugg]

Originally posted by herr_neumann
Anyone else wonder how many of these tracks have been bought by Jobs or other apple folks? I mean what is droping a million bucks on music down loads when it makes the stock climb $5 a share? And it sure has impressed the music industry folks..... Just a thought.

I have wondered that. Also, do Apple employees get discounts? Free Music? It does really seem though that even Apple is honestly amazed at the popularity of the service.

 

[MacKid]

Originally posted by frinky23

One major difference here in the states is that prices are listed without tax included. So if I downloaded a song, I would pay $0.99 plus the applicable tax (which Apple will calculate for me based on my address - this is part of the reason they need an address to use the service).

They also need the address for the. . .um. . .credit. . .card. . .

 

[JGowan]

Apple Employees Stealing Music

I bet Steve Jobs sat down and had one hellava hardline talk with everyone of the people who has access to the AAC files that they are ripping and putting online. I bet he would fire VP Phil if he found that Phil was offloading AAC files onto a fat portable 200GB HD.

Oh... and you just know that someone eventually will and BAM.... BUSTED!! and then, BAM.... FIRED!