I actually would assume this would happen. As oppose to all other retail during the shopping season, Im not surprised to see revenue go down for intangible property because its not something you can really give to someone. And after someone has spent all their extra money on gifts for others, they have little left over for music for themselves. Seems logical...
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iTunes Store Seeing Revenue Crunch?
- Thread starter caccamolle
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overrated hooey
This is the register.. I get their RSS feed and it seems to me that it is a pretty sensational article.. They knew they would get lots of mention for it.. I have seen it posted on digg and /.
All I know is that my wife just spend $85 on Christmas Music and I have bought about 135 items in the past three months.. Apple is still selling a ton of iPods, and that is where Apple is making the money. I think the music store is doing better than breaking even. If Apple is still making more money year over year and beating the streets revenue expectations.. I don't see the problem.
Looking at http://tools.thestreet.com/tsc/quotes.html?symb=AAPL&pg=analyst
They dont see any problems... Nothing like an Apple story to drive page views though.
This is the register.. I get their RSS feed and it seems to me that it is a pretty sensational article.. They knew they would get lots of mention for it.. I have seen it posted on digg and /.
All I know is that my wife just spend $85 on Christmas Music and I have bought about 135 items in the past three months.. Apple is still selling a ton of iPods, and that is where Apple is making the money. I think the music store is doing better than breaking even. If Apple is still making more money year over year and beating the streets revenue expectations.. I don't see the problem.
Looking at http://tools.thestreet.com/tsc/quotes.html?symb=AAPL&pg=analyst
They dont see any problems... Nothing like an Apple story to drive page views though.
I doubt most people understand the relationship between bitrate and sound quality. But people have had time to have a run in with DRM. Having to de-authorize songs when you sell your old machine is easy enough...but who remembers. Heck half the time I zero out my drive and THEN remember. Too late. Maybe it's a little more work to go to the store and buy a CD, but it's a lot easier in the end.
Meanwhile, it looks like iPod sales are still increasing. Apple makes very little money from iTMS. I think this is more a message to the RIAA, MPAA, etc than Apple.
Numbers LIE!!
Would you give your kids access to your credit card info or an unlimited account at the iTunes store, I hope not. Gift cards from the local Apple Specialist is how I gift friends and family (No tracability there). The Nielson Soundscan chart I saw only looks as if there there was a 15% decline in music sales in 3rd Qtr 2006 from the January Qtr 2006 high.
Would you give your kids access to your credit card info or an unlimited account at the iTunes store, I hope not. Gift cards from the local Apple Specialist is how I gift friends and family (No tracability there). The Nielson Soundscan chart I saw only looks as if there there was a 15% decline in music sales in 3rd Qtr 2006 from the January Qtr 2006 high.
That's exactly what worries me too.
Seriously. This surpises you? I bet they know difference in mass between what you eat and ****.
Exactly. People sometimes forget that the iTMS exists to sell iPods. It may create some revenue in the process, but it is not a major source of revenue for Apple - the iPod is.
Which is actually part of the reason the iTMS has been such a success so far. Music quality has been down for about 10 years, with only to three to five tracks on the average album really being all that outstanding, so buying singles and skipping the whole album makes good financial sense.
This is actually considered poor journalism, too. Take an inflammatory/unproven statement, then add a question mark at the end and it becomes an interrogative rather than a statement. The premise is you're now posing it as a question, but it still reads like a suggestion and FUD.
But then, when the entire publication is based on rumors, its kinda hard to always make truthful statements in headlines.
So are you saying you don't buy much (so you have a lot of quiet in your life), or you're a fan of those tracks on the store that are recorded silence? I couldn't let that typo go.
No, it's a suggestion that DRM is not an issue with things like Hymn, downloading the music illegally, burning and re-ripping, ect
"DRM is not an issue if you're buying music legally." is a sentence that fits your comparison.
Declining growth might as well mean declining sales in todays business world. And I think that's a real issue. If you're not constantly growing you're doing something wrong is the attitude taken by Wall Street today, the result is the list of "successful" companies only includes the top three in an industry now.
Remember when a business was considered a success simply by making a modest profit? What happened to that. World domination isn't the end-all/be-all.
I'm an emusic subscriber and I have to say that generally the music is higher quality. Most tracks are 180-220 VBR. yeah, there are the occasional stick in the mud group that will only put out 128kbps, but I've only had that happen a couple times, and emusic marks albums encoded this way.
I also suspect that iTunes "colors" some tracks audio-wise. I have a single I got from iTunes that sounds "better" than a 192kbs MP3 version I downloaded online. Now I can't verify what encoder settings that user had when he ripped the album, but there was significantly sharper treble and deeper bass in the iTunes version.
...and I have mine set up through PayPal, which goes through my bank account...
I switched from using my credit card to PayPal to consolidate my bill paying. But I don't think 65% of Apple's users did.
It's not surprising that online music sales in general will eventually taper off.
Think about the natural progression of the first time MP3 player buyer.. they run out and the first thing they do is load it up full of all the music they want.
Once it's loaded up, then the only time you bother buying music is when something in particular interests you.. which certainly isn't something that happens every day, or even once a week.
So now since most of the people interested in having an MP3 player has one, and most of them are finally getting all their old favorites loaded into their players, they won't be buying as much.
Think about the natural progression of the first time MP3 player buyer.. they run out and the first thing they do is load it up full of all the music they want.
Once it's loaded up, then the only time you bother buying music is when something in particular interests you.. which certainly isn't something that happens every day, or even once a week.
So now since most of the people interested in having an MP3 player has one, and most of them are finally getting all their old favorites loaded into their players, they won't be buying as much.
THE REPORT IS DELIBERATE DISINFORMATION
http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2006/12/do-math-itunes-sales-arent-collapsing.html
PLEASE START THE WAVE OF ARTICLES EXPOSING THIS LAME ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT THE iTUNES STORE !!!! SPREAD THE WORD !
My household has 7 iPods and never has had a failure. Your daughter has had three failures.
hmmm..... Tell her to stop driving nails with it, it's not a hammer
It's plainly obvious it's something she's doing to the device.
And don't forget Linda Perry is also Christina's producer (and helped out James Blunt)
The sample looks too small to be conclusive but personally I have never brought off itunes. Why would you though? You by an inferior quality compressed recording, with no hard copy and it will be gone if your computer dies. Sorry not a fan of itunes but I love the ipod.
ok, and according to Apple, things actually look pretty good for the ITMS.
It looks like it was mere misinformation spread by Forrester Research Inc. This is a name to remember. May be they were short Apple shares ??
It just did not make much sense, as I believe most of us said around here.
It looks like it was mere misinformation spread by Forrester Research Inc. This is a name to remember. May be they were short Apple shares ??
It just did not make much sense, as I believe most of us said around here.
Now this from appleinsider-
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2302
This (IMO) may have been an attempt to artificially lower apple stock and bring back some cheaper pricing. Im smelling foul play....
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2302
This (IMO) may have been an attempt to artificially lower apple stock and bring back some cheaper pricing. Im smelling foul play....
Sub-CD quality, DRM music. This is why I don't buy from the iTunes store.
They should offer flac, or apple lossless at that same current prices. THEN it would be a good deal.
They should offer flac, or apple lossless at that same current prices. THEN it would be a good deal.
I agree with you in principle. However I wonder how many people have hi-fi systems that can really resolve differences in quality between the various formats above what the ITMS offers.
On DRM it is a real huge pain in the behind; I still don't really understand it (and now with my 4th mac in the house I might have to). I however just don't know what else can be done in the attempt to defeat piracy.
Anyhow, for my critical music I also buy CDs only, and for all the remaining stuff I find the practicality of the ITMS store hard to beat.
Who loses?
Nobody loses on this actually.
Apple is selling iPods like never before (the new shuffle will prove to be a bigger hit than the first one and the 80GB iPod will be even bigger). We've heard time and time again that Apple doesn't make money on the store so it's no big deal.
Content providers don't care (too much) as the store has always been just a very small suppliment to their overall sales.
Customers aren't losing. The store is there any time they want, with new content coming in every day.
Nobody loses on this actually.
Apple is selling iPods like never before (the new shuffle will prove to be a bigger hit than the first one and the 80GB iPod will be even bigger). We've heard time and time again that Apple doesn't make money on the store so it's no big deal.
Content providers don't care (too much) as the store has always been just a very small suppliment to their overall sales.
Customers aren't losing. The store is there any time they want, with new content coming in every day.
Slower sales... why?
My biggest thought about the slower sales is the fact that people are repeat buyers of the iPod and know how the store works and aren't in as big a hurry to add content as they were intially. I have purchased about 400 tracks/video files since the store's introduction. Most were within the first year. I love Apple. I love the store. I've decided that, if the music is really good, I want the CD. I'd rather buy a Used "Very Good" CD from Amazon than download a whole album at a mere 128kbps. For quick song or two to please the wife or to have on my iPod, I still use the store.
Does this mean that Apple is losing money on me? No.
Personally, in 5 years, I have owned 6 iPods. I have bought iPods for my wife (5G & 2G Shuffle), father (3G), sister (3G & 5G) and best friend (2G). Apple is getting business as I'm certainly shelling out the money for my loved ones but not spending it on the store. I'm sure there are more like me.
It's funny that another big story on the horizon is the possible BEATLES introduction on iTunes. Why wouldn't the Register share that info as a possible "silver lining" to the current revenue cloud?
My guess is spin. Sex and Bad news are the E.F. Hutton of media.
My biggest thought about the slower sales is the fact that people are repeat buyers of the iPod and know how the store works and aren't in as big a hurry to add content as they were intially. I have purchased about 400 tracks/video files since the store's introduction. Most were within the first year. I love Apple. I love the store. I've decided that, if the music is really good, I want the CD. I'd rather buy a Used "Very Good" CD from Amazon than download a whole album at a mere 128kbps. For quick song or two to please the wife or to have on my iPod, I still use the store.
Does this mean that Apple is losing money on me? No.
Personally, in 5 years, I have owned 6 iPods. I have bought iPods for my wife (5G & 2G Shuffle), father (3G), sister (3G & 5G) and best friend (2G). Apple is getting business as I'm certainly shelling out the money for my loved ones but not spending it on the store. I'm sure there are more like me.
It's funny that another big story on the horizon is the possible BEATLES introduction on iTunes. Why wouldn't the Register share that info as a possible "silver lining" to the current revenue cloud?
My guess is spin. Sex and Bad news are the E.F. Hutton of media.
Here's an interesting comment posted on the original analyst's blog (bold added by me):
181 iTunes buyers? They don't make a roll-eyes smiley big enough...
181 iTunes buyers? They don't make a roll-eyes smiley big enough...
Never believe the Register, Thurrott, or cNet. They lack "truthiness" TM
I don't think you're using that word correctly 'cause truthiness is all they've got.
B