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iTMS Europe: 800,000 Tracks In A Week
no_demons writes "In a press release, Apple has announced that the "European" iTunes Music Store has sold 0.8 million tracks in a week, with around 450,000 being sold in the UK alone. According to Steve Jobs other services were shifting only 50,000 tracks a week in Europe before the launch."
The RIAA still doesn't understand why singles are selling so well, so sues 428 more people.
I stole this sig.
A lot of people on here were doubting that the UK has much of a Macintosh userbase.
Of the people I know who've used iTMS AND BOUGHT SOMETHING, about half are Mac users and half aren't.
I know a lot more Windows users who've installed it though.
Join the Free Software Foundation
Harumph. At least if I don't own an iPod I am still a part of this Personal Computer Revolution with an old Apple //c sitting on my shelf...
what they don't tell you is that 74% of those downloads were made by Sporty Spice. She d/l'ed thousands of copies of "tell me what you want, what you really, really want" in the hopes of reclaiming some of her former "glory". It's shameful for all Europeans.
not yet up to the 2.5 million a week from the US. Of course, this is the first week and demand ramps up as people sign up and get the tech down pat.
This is good news for Apple (obviously) but what will be more interesting is how this affects iPod sales. We all know the iTunes Music store is a pimp for the iPod, so now that we have a controlled environment that we can monitor closely, I guess we can prove if Apple's music model really works the way they planned.
So while inertia-bound Microsofattempts to shift itself toward its many stated directional goals and moribund music industry giants try to pedal their own wares, puny Apple Computer, with a less than perfect portfolio continues to run rings around these beasts. I'm not exactly a fan of Apple, and find it quite odd that they have branched into music distribution, but I do love these results. Apple is establishing itself well and by the time the competition sorts out its own problems iTunes will be ubiquitous.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What this proves is that Apple is becoming less a computer vendor and more a consumer electronics company. Sure, they still sell computers (I have a 12" PB), but their new focus is becoming clear. The surging price of AAPL only reinforces this new direction.
Lack of competition is not necessarily a good thing. I'm glad that the model of physical-medialess music is taking off, but I'm concerned about how much power Apple/iTunes may end up having in the future if they absolutely dominate the market. Will it be any better than the record industry now? (and don't kid yourself, there may be several "major" labels, but through the RIAA they act as one).
Look at a correlary in the "real world". What if the only place to get music was at your local Best Buy and that just about every other outlet sold orders of magnitude less.
Let's just be careful what we wish for...
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
AOL UK and Apple have a deal to promote to DSL customers throuhg Keyword: itunes, where customers can download itunes :-)
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
It's online already. In Canada it's called iKazaa.
miniature American flags for others! If anything, the early success of the iTMS in selected european countries indicates a trend that global internet business models can work in selected markets. Yet the internet in its most basic sense is about bringing information (or data, in this case) to all. Rather than simply transplanting the store to countries with similar capitalstic structures, the true "revolution" will be marked by the universal ability to experience the global art of music. Apple has not forged a new beachead. yet.
Guess it didn't really matter that Napster beat Apple to launch there.
I wonder if the RIAA's listening?
A bit off topic, but it will come up anyways, so mod me however you wish:
.ogg for use in UT2004 seemed unnecessarily complex (burn to cd, rip to wav, encode to ogg), and as such I am wondering if a DRM is really necessary. I haven't pirated music in over a year now, and indeed have no such music on my laptop (or iPod) currently: I am now more prone to buy music from iTMS.
I've used iTunes since its inception (on OS 9), and have bought around 30-40 songs since the release of iTMS US (and have also downloaded the countless weekly free tracks). The DRM, while not particularly inconvenient to me (I have a 20GB iPod) seems to be a great sticking point to others. I have never had the need to use my music on more than 3 computers simultaneously, and have never needed to burn a playlist so many times as to exceed the iTunes limit (and even then you can change the playlist and burn again)
That said, the steps necessary to convert my favorite fragging tracks to
I am proud of Apple's successes and hope they go far in the future, but DRM is a dangerous and narrow path, and I only hope that Steve Jobs doesn't take his penchant for control too far with this one. Until that time, the current implementation is sufficient for me, and with new technologies such as Airtunes connectivity and convergence are becoming more mainstream: the need for DRM-less files is becoming less.
However... Apple needs to open their format to other companies. I dont give a damn, Steve, if iPod comprises 50%, 75% or even 100% of the market, if another company wants to use your insanely great AAC Protected format, they should be able to. The fact that consumers cannot use other digital devices to play the product Apple is selling is a major sticking point with many, and the tools necessary to allow this are being intentionally broken with each successive iTunes release.
Yes, I'm a fervent Mac Evangelist, but while this works perfectly for me, getting a friend with another mp3 player to start using a Mac and/or the iTMS is going to be pretty hard if I have to explain to him that he has to break the user agreement to play the files by breaking the DRM.
The format needs to be opened, and it needs to happen soon.
Help a college student
I would not be so sure about that... I personally know a few PC peeps who have iTunes installed and absoluting raving about it to a degree that they admit theyr next purchase to be a Mac. In a year or so, when their current PC is outdated.
the iPods receive short term market share gain from th iTMS, but i think the other Apple hardware will benefit in a year or so.
I'll eat my hat if, over the next 2 years, Apple market share doesn't rise to 150% of what they have now.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Probably has something to do with it. Bam Thwok is exclusive to iTMS, and got a mention in nearly all of the iTunes launch coverage. Considering that the Pixies are currently touring Europe, I'm sure that drove plenty of sales. I for one bought Bam Thwok on iTMS launch day.
Those are some pretty impressive numbers indeed. In one week iTMS is supposedly the most popular music service in Europe now. Here's my question: since there were already other services up and running in Europe, were the European users waiting for iTMS to arrive and then just went nuts when it opened? Or did everyone switch from the other services? Why the huge numbers, which are blowing the other services out of the water, when others were available?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
And the headline reads: All of Europe buys equivalent of 65,000 CDs this week. Europe buys roughly 3 billion recorded music units (PDF) (almost all of which are CDs) a year. Even if iTunes maintained that sales rate (which is extremely unlikely), they'd sell the rough equivalent of 3.4 million CDs a year, or roughly 0.1 % of the total CDs sold. Sure, that'll make a dent in this whole piracy thing.
The billing address on your credit card.
As I understand, for a time at least, you could purchase gift certificates with a US credit card and sell/send those to people around the world who could then use them.
I don't now if Apple ever squashed that.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
this has been thoroughly covered by Apple. the iTMS US was making a slight profit as of a few months ago. It's all a matter of volume.
Apple's share of revenue from each $.99 song sale is on the order of a dime as I recall.
While no longer a loss leader for the iPod, iTMS will not be a major source of income for Apple until/unless they get a larger cut of the sale.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I decided to try this myself, you can't buy from the foreign stores. It gives you a message stating that your account is only authorized for purchase in the US.
So, in case anyone else was wondering, there is your answer.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
"from the but-are-those-metric-tracks dept."
yes, complete with iambic pentametres [sic]...
So why exactly would they want to open this up, and help other companies sell devices?
Folks have often argued that they should at least open it up in areas where Apple doesn't yet have a market. They key word people are forgetting when they make this argument is yet.
Again, how is it in Apple's interest to let other companies piggyback onto Apple's extremely difficult (legally, technically), barely-profitable venture that is the iTunes Music Store?
It's like the people who bitch about authorities going to the expense of building bicycle lanes because "I never see a bike using that lane when I drive past every morning."
Anecdotes do not trump statistics.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
You're making no sense. You're trying to posit something along the lines of "Apple stores "haven't come to the US" unless they're in all 50 states". The moment Apple opens a store in Florida, they're in the US. It's really that simple.
France, UK, and Germany are all in Europe. Ergo, iTunes has come to Europe. Perhaps not _all_ of Europe, but they didn't say that, either.
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Face facts. People who buy *can't* meaningfully tell that it is 128kbps, or don't care.
If they did, it wouldn't sell. It does sell; therefore the price and convenience outweight the quality and sound.
GPL Deconstructed
Apple use Akamai to host the iTunes store and their other web-sites. Akamai have server farms all over the world. So when you use the store you're actually talking to a fairly local server.
Ok. Here is the thing. The 128Kbps ACC files on iTMS are not the same as 128Kbps AAC files ripped from a CD let alone crappy 128Kbps MP3. The songs on the iTMS are encoded with a professional quality encoder from the Studio masters. Encoding from a CD would mean you were encoding twice. Once to PCM and again to ACC or MP3.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.