Windows iTunes Sells A Million Songs In 3.5 Days

ajkst1 writes "According to an Apple press release, the iTunes Music Store has sold 1 million songs since its release on the Windows platform on October 16. Also of note is the 1 million downloads of the iTunes music program itself. When the iTMS was first released, it took a full week to sell a million songs. The store has now had 14 million songs purchased and downloaded since its original launch in April."

Note...

[blackmonday]

Expect iPod sales to soar into the holidays. Apple made something very difficult seem very simple to the end user, and now they're being rewarded.

What they want you to think

[jbellis]

is "wow, 1M downloads by win32 users already."

but if you read it carefully it just says the 1M are "by iTunes users," i.e. including existing Mac users.

... where does submitter get his 600k/wk figure, btw? It's not in the linked press release.

thoughts

[tsch]

one of the problems I have with the service is that album pricing can be a bit uneven. There are too many albums (ex: NWA's greatest hits) that have an "extra" song or two added to them that then are not available for the $9.99 download because, well, you'd be getting MORE than just the album. (In the NWA case that's BS, but whatever.) Also, new albums (such as Snoop's Paid the Cost to be the Boss) don't always sell for $9.99. When I went to buy Cost a couple of months ago, it was $17 or $18. That being said, I've probably purchased $80 or so worth of music since iTunes 4 came out for Mac. Best purchase so far: Placido Domingo's album of Mariachi music.

Re:No need to click! Here's the Text!

[Atryn]

Actually there is a good reason to click. They measure interest in the story (in part) by hits to their PR.

Canada.....

[Anonymous Coward]

dont think anyone from Canada downloaded many of those 1 million songs from the last 3.5 days.

Re:Lot's of sales... No profit...

[paranoidsim]

Troll?

I mean, sure good analysis and point about bandwidth. But hey, iTunes music store is as much about exposure for Apple and selling iPods etc, as it is about profit.

Crazy like a Fox

[Dark Paladin]

The more I think about it, the more clever it seems.

So you can get iTunes for free. Ho-friggin-ray. And you can rip MP3's to your hearts content, so they work with *all* MP3 players.

Wait - Windows Media Player rips to WMA by default. Oh, it does MP3's, but you have to pay more to get it to work better than crap.

Ok, so what. Yeah, it's a good app.

And it lets you burn CD's - music and data, right from the playlist.

For free.

And all the other machines in the house - they can stream off that, so I just put all my MP3's on one box, put iTunes on the other computers, and stream from there.

Ok, that is kind of cool. Check out the online store. You know, I've only wanted to buy 1 song off this album. Cool - I just did. Only cost $1 - that's not too bad.

And I can burn it to a music CD, or put it on 2 more machines.

Then comes the fall. You know, I wanted to get an MP3 player anyway. For some insane reason (you had an additional $300), you get an iPod.

Don't need a Mac, and it works just fine with your Windows and iTunes.

But hold on - turns out you can use this iPod thing with digital camera and upload the pictures to the iPod, and from there to the computer. Oh, but you need a Mac for that.

You know, what do I use my computer for? Email, a few games - huh, that Aspyr company is porting over the ones I really like anyway -

Man, and this other stuff comes free with a Mac - a movie editor, a browser that blocks popup ads by default, there's less virus problems -

Hm....

Now, I don't think everybody will consider gong to the Mac just because of the iTunes store.

But having "hip 20-to-30-somethings" tell us how switching to the Mac is "the bomb" really didn't work.

So Steve Jobs is changing tactics: Go ahead, take a bite of this apple. It's free! It will just give you knowledge! Or, barring that, a pretty kick ass music player!

Next thing people know, they realize that they've been living naked under Windows for a long time, and start to make themselves aprons from leaves.

In this case, by plucking them from the Apple tree.

I'm curious to see what will happen from here. Remember: Apple doesn't need to dominate the market. It already makes a profit with its products now, and it happy to do so.

This will just give it the chance to make more profit - and maybe show people what they've been missing along the way.

Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.

Surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised by this release. I would think that there is a massive amount of built-up demand among Windows users for the goodness and convenience that is iPod and iTunes.

Personally, I'd love to be able to scan music online and get what I want. Until now, that usually meant some [etree.org] website [mp3.com] or some questionable [kazaa.com] methods. Both options don't really float my boat 'cause it isn't a service designed for the distribution and enjoyment of music, as in from finding it, obtaining it, listening to it, and storing it for future listenings using a single method.

Now that Apple has show the world that not all online music listerns are 1337 k1dd13z, maybe we can continue with these developments, and we can stop hearing some organizations [riaa.org] whine.

Nice but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about how many more they would have sold if they'd launched the windows client at the same time as the Mac. Now they're competing with crappy "services" like buy.music but they had an open field when they launched the mac store.

Yeah, I know they only got their licensing agreements because of their small marketshare but this is the kind of hesitation that is costing the music industry huge amounts of money. If they'd jumped in with both feet, they could have revolutionized (even more so) music distribution.

Instead, they insisted on going with Apple's 2.something percent marketshare as "an experiment" to see what would happen. Even a 12 year old could see what would happen if it worked. Copycats would pop up with inferior products. The first major lookalike for PC people was buy.music with all its irritating restrictions and inconsistant licensing.

People who got burned by buy.music are less likely to try the itunes store now that it's finally available to them. Sure, Apple sold a million windows tunes twice as fast as their first million mac tunes but that's not nearly as many songs as they should have sold. Would have sold if they hadn't crippled their launch earlier this year.

People wonder how a company with such great products can have such a small marketshare. This is the reason. They put out their incredible, groundbreaking products with technically unnecessary restrictions that force them into a tiny niche market while less conservative companies toss out cheap knockoffs for the mass market.

I'm glad I don't own a part of Apple. I'd be depressed that my investment could (should) be worth so much more.

Re:Lot's of sales... No profit...

[jdreed1024]

This sounds a lot like the dot com days to me. They are selling songs for 99 cents a piece, nearly all of which the RIAA is taking back. Not to mention that the software's been downloaded 1,000,000 times and they've only sold about 1,000,000 songs for the same period. Not much if you ask me. The bandwidth probably costs more than their profit.

Except that it's totally different. The dot-com days were typified by huge numbers of venture capitalists, stupid ideas, and fly-by-nite products. Apple is a huge company (yeah, yeah, they're dying just like *BSD, we know, we know) with a lot of backing, and they have other products for sale which they do make a profit on.

Also, how do you know they're not making a profit from iTunes? I haven't seen any figures on what the licensing costs. I'd imagine they must be making _some_ profit on it - they're not stupid. They don't need to make a huge profit, since like I said before, they have other sources of income (AlBooks, anyone?). They can break even and still be in good financial shape. But I suspect they're not even close to being in the red.

Re:Lot's of sales... No profit...

[GeorgeH]

They make about $0.33 profit out of every $0.99 sale. That goes to pay for servers, development and, of course bandwidth. But the iTunes Music Store is also a huge ad for an iPod, which they make a lot on too. Apple is doing just fine with the money they're making from the music store. According to NPR their stock price has doubled between the launch of the iTMS and the Windows release.

Errr... I mean Apple and BSD are dead.

They plan on profiting with iPod sales.

[tukkayoot]

Apple is doing the reverse of what video game console manufacturers do. In the video game industry, they sell the consoles at a break even price, or less than what they cost to make, but profit on licensing fees paid to them by game developers. Essentially "giving" the hardware away while cashing in on software.

Apple is doing the reverse. Selling the "software" (or music in this case) for cheap while (hopefully) profiting on sales of iPods and iPod accessories.

Re:Lot's of sales... No profit...

[axle_512]

Apple readily admits that they don't intend to make money from this. from an MSNBC article: "But Jobs contends that in the long run the competition will boil down to Apple and Microsoft. "Between the license fees and the credit-card charges, there's no money in online music," he says. For Apple, the payoff comes in selling the iPod players that work hand in hand with the store: more than a million have been sold, and in the last quarter, Apple moved 336,000 units." link is here

Apple's Digital Hub Strategy

[chia_monkey]

Each month, Apple comes out with some sort of announcement that still blows me away. MacWorld after MacWorld they have new products to support this digital hub lifestyle. When will it end???

How many of you scoffed when Jobs mentioned the "digital hub"? I did. "WTF is a digital hub? The Mac already does all of these things he's talking about. Simple ways to work with your digital camera, for adding new hardware, etc" Yet they come out with the iPod, a non-computer/non-software item. And it sells like nuts. Then they sell it to Windows users. And now with iTunes Music Service, it's become quite evident Apple is interested in more than being simply a computer manufacturer. People scoffed at the idea, but one million songs in a few days is nothing to laugh at. Can't wait to see what happens to iPod sales (and conversely iTMS sales) in the holiday season.

and it would be more...

[Neophytus]

If it wasn't for their fucking US-only licencing with the companies. Almost everyone I regularly talk to would make use of an international service.

Re:Pepsi or Coke?

[agent2]

They should have went with Coke. Now, if I want to get free iTunes music, I'll have to patronize Pepsico... blah.

Re:One problem with ITunes

[jared_hanson]

I'm not sure if you are trolling, because we've been over this many times before, but I'll go over it again.

The protected AAC files (.m4p) downloaded from iTMS can be burned an unlimited number of times to recordable CDs. There is, of course, no protection on standard audio CDs, so you are free to rerip to MP3/OGG/your-format-du-jour.

Expecting legal downloads to ever be completely absent of DRM is completely ridiculous. It will simply never happen if the big 5 record labels are going to license their music. So, the best you can hope for is DRM that actually repects your usage rights. This is exactly what Apple's system, which is called FairPlay, was designed to do.

despite Microsoft

[ColMustard]

A million already despite the Microsoft rep trying to discredit the service. I wonder if anyone listens to Microsoft's opinions nowadays anyways.

Re:Rock On! And A Question For The Community...

[frightenedmonkey]

You don't deal directly with the iTMS, you have to be hooked up with a label that has a deal with the iTMS. My understanding was that CDBaby [cdbaby.com] was going to provide for labels and independent bands to put their stuff for sale there (I'm too lazy to go poking around their site for the information, but I'm sure you can find it, and you can always contact them (they're quite responsive)). That said, I believe Apple's iTMS team is reviewing indie music and only accepting quality recordings, so if you want to try and sell 4-track demo's on iTMS (and you're not Sebadoh), I think you'll get rejected.

Also, you don't need to have money to download iTunes, just to buy music, and you don't have to have money just to browse around the store. Considering the user experience on Windows, for the most part, has been good, I'd suggest just downloading it and checking it out now instead of waiting until you want to buy anything, it's a nifty program.

Re:Note...

[moonboy]

It actually seems as though the record companies saw it as being 'very difficult', but the consumers saw it as being 'very easy'. Fortunately, so did Apple.

And the question you just HAVE to ask...

[dougman]

Anyone have ANY reason to believe that the, gosh, well, ARTISTS that recorded these fine tunes will see ANY of the money that's changed hands in these fourteen million transactions??

I'm guessing...not likely.

Or, well, perhaps a handful of huge pop artists will get a small pittance in exchange for singing the praises of "getting compensated fairly" for their work.

I can't wait for the first major-label artist/band to publically ask when their iTunes check will be in the mail...

Re:Kazaa and other file sharing services

[Oculus Habent]

Probably because iTunes isn't a file sharing service. In sheer terms of quantity, iTunes doesn't hold a candle to KaZaA, but then you're dealing with 800 copies of a single song, 250 of which are "demo" red herring tracks put out by RIAA lackeys, 200 copies that are 56kbps, and 100 copies that seem to be encoded after having been recorded on a VoIP headset from a clock radio across the room...

The iTMS guarantees consistant quality, which is something that can't be said of P2P systems. iTMS also comes with additional information, you can get samples before you download a song - fast and convenient, unlike in KaZaA.

Overall, iTunes gives you a good interface for using the music, a consistant distribution system with a quality guarantee you don't get for free, and it's getting better. Sure, it won't appeal to audiophiles or the DRM-obsessed who are unfamiliar with the word "equitable", but then very little does. ;)

Re:Wrong

[squarefish]

there's a ogg plug-in that's been available for the quicktime and itunes on os x for quit some time and I doubt it will take long for this to come out for the pc version now that it's available. I also wouldn't doubt that itunes will at some point in the future support wma, either natively or through a plug-in. for christ's sakes, this thing hasn't even been out a week and everyone's bitching about what it doesn't do.

Re:And the question you just HAVE to ask...

[Mononoke]

Anyone have ANY reason to believe that the, gosh, well, ARTISTS that recorded these fine tunes will see ANY of the money that's changed hands in these fourteen million transactions??

Most likely they've already seen it. Remember those shiny new guitars, those flashy cars, those fancy tour busses? Who's money do you think they were spending?

Record companies are a version of loan sharks: They loan you baskets full of money and then hold all your paychecks until that money is repaid. It's the artist's fault if thy decide to spend the profits off their next 2 albums down at the Ferrari dealership.

Re:I don't really like it (yet)

[Planesdragon]

Why they chose to redefine 'Maximize' is beyond me, and you can't get it to fill the window.

They didn't. Take a close look at the middle "window move" button. It never changes from the two-window "resize" icon, which is what Firebird is when it's maximized (right now.)

When I click that button, and go to a "not-full-screen" window, that button is a one-window "maximize" icon.

Apple didn't re-define anything; they just didn't make their app maximizable... and it's hardly the first app to do so. (Winamp, ICQ, and I'm sure more than a few more.)

Re:Can someone please explain

[casio282]

1. Yes, iTunes Music Store uses DRM. It is a simple (and admittedly regrettable) fact that right now no major label will allow digital distribution of their content w/o DRM. To Apple's credit, they have negotiated the least restrictive DRM scheme out there, except for that of eMusic [emusic.com], which sells DRM-free MP3 files.(And is the service I use for that reason.)

2. iTunes != iTMS. Once again: iTunes is not (just) an online music store. It is primarily a jukebox program. That's what I use it for -- I wouldn't buy from iTMS, since my player doesn't support AAC and I don't much care for DRM either.

3. MusicMatch is a terrible piece of software. Ditto RealOne. WMP is decent, but it scares me. A lot of people think Winamp is the bee's knees, and I admire it and its developers, but I've never quite cottoned to its playlist-oriented (rather than library-oriented, for lack of a better term) interface. So iTunes works for me, as an MP3 jukebox. YMMV. I guess Windows users do like choice, after all.

Well...

[Zelet]

If you like the company or not it is hard to deny that Apple has done almost everything right. In the last couple of years they have:
1. Adopted open standards
2. Used and contributed to open-source programs
3. Brought music to the net (legally and successfully)
4. Brought their hardware up to x86 speeds
5. Brought UNIX to the desktop

Innovate, don't regulate

[mabu]

Isn't it amazing what happens when you innovate instead of regulate?

I'm sure all the people who purchased songs did so because they were in fear that the RIAA was going to sue them, not because Apple has heavily promoted a new way to conviently acquire just the music they want.

Score: Technology 1, Lawyers 0

Re:Rock On! And A Question For The Community...

[jjhall]

That is a good idea, except in the fact that the artists that are represented (if you can call it that) by the RIAA have contracts with the RIAA saying they can't do just that. That is like me going to you, saying you market my new software for me. You say OK, here is your 15 year exclusive contract so only Brendan Byrd & Co. can market your software, and we pay you 2% of the profit.

If another company comes to me tomorrow and says Brendon Byrd & Co. is ripping you off, we will give you 25%, it would be breach of contract if I go with them before the original terms of the contract (15 years in this case) are completed.

There are smaller independant labels which are doing just that, giving better cuts to the artists, looser terms on the contracts, and treat the artists better in general. Unfortunately at this point they just don't have the exposure and power to lure some big names to thier side to help get that ball rolling. Those companies aren't "taking a chance" in the sense that your post implied and butting heads with the RIAA. They are simply operating a business and offering terms to artists. They are not operating under the table and encouraging smaller artists to breach their contracts.

Wrongo...

[poptones]

Expecting legal downloads to ever be completely absent of DRM is completely ridiculous.

These sites [grammy.ru] have been available for years now. MP3 finder, grammy.ru - many of them. All operating completely within the laws of the country that hosts them (Russia) and in cooperation with many of the very same labels (Universal, Sony, etc) who have refused, for years, to cooperate with american web companies in offering the very same product package.

Notice how we never hear about lawsuits or the RIAA threatening to take down these "international" sites? Why do you think that is? They don't dare talk about them and let Americans know they can buy mp3 music online at a dime a pop... or even get many popular picks absolutely free, and completely legal.

It's fascinating how they can continue to make money in a country where "pirated music" outnumbers legal copies on store shelves 2:1, but swear that offering DRM free download services in the US would put them out of business.

Re:Note...

[baba]

While I agree with your sentiment, I'm still amazed and amused by the crowd cheering for what -- when all is told -- amounts to a very good music outlet for RIAA.

And here I was thinking that the cool thing was not to support them or buy their music anymore.

I'm confused.

Re:Emusic kills subscription

[murr]

That's under $.25 per track, for MP3s with NO DRM. A better (legal) deal cannot be had. Plus, it has lots of independent stuff not found elsewhere.

All true, but their material can be quite uneven and they tend not to have big-name artists (or only early recordings that were buried in record labels' vaults for very good reasons). Therefore, the attraction of eMusic was the possibility of downloading stuff speculatively, without thinking of a ticking download meter.

Nevertheless, I was willing to give them a chance to show what they could do under the new model. However, downloads (which already lost considerably in reliability and convenience when they switched to their proprietary download manager earlier this year) have turned to complete garbage since their announcement. It takes dozens of restarts to get a download now, and sometimes the download is falsely reported as correct when in fact a zero length or truncated file was downloaded.

Under these circumstances, I don't see much of a future for my eMusic subscription, or for eMusic, for that matter.

Re:You got that right

[Rimbo]

"Why don't you steal your stuff like the other slashbots?"

How can I steal my own stuff? [rimbosity.com] After all, it's mine, I wrote it, and I can do whatever the fuck I want to with it, including sharing it with whomever wants it.

Re:One problem with ITunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Expecting legal downloads to ever be completely absent of DRM is completely ridiculous.

Expecting me to open my wallet for DRM is what's ridiculous.

I was one of the better customers of the music industry (>= 10x as many purchases as the average person) before they drove my business away. Now I avoid major-label CDs. Did I mention that the independent-label CDs that I buy come with higher quality than 128 Kbps MP3 or AAC, and no DRM?

So, Slashdot pirates...

[Overly Critical Guy]

What excuses will you have now to keep using Kazaa and so forth? You're always rattling on about how file-traders brave freedom fighters shoving it to the RIAA by avoiding an "obsolete business model," and how record companies should instead embrace Internet file-sharing.

Well, here it is. Have you switched to this excellent, high-quality p2p file-sharing program or are you still leeching off of Kazaa? I think it's a legitimate question, because iTunes is just the tip of the iceberg with this kind of success. I'm very pleased that Apple is leading the charge.

Will you actually stand behind your ideals, or does it turn out that you've just been justifying your guilt for leeching all this time?

iTunes is loss leader for iPod

[tyfoon]

My apologies if this has been already covered. It's clear that Apple has made iTunes the loss leader for the iPod. That is, the are bringing people in the door with the downloaded music and then (hopefully) up selling them on iPods (and Macs too). That business model makes sense when you think about the profit margins that the iPods bring. They're making at least $100 on just the low end model and they've sold 1.4 Million total units. Also, it appears that iPod sales have been accelerating since the launch of iTMS. Apple has figured out that if they sale "X" amount of songs they will probably sell "X" amount of iPods. So I think the losses from the music store are chalked up as the just cost of doing business. It looks like the loss leader is the current business model of choice for the online music stores. MusicMatch is doing the same thing (up selling to the Pro version) and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Re:Emusic kills subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

That's under $.25 per track, for MP3s with NO DRM. A better (legal) deal cannot be had.

All tracks are not created equal. iTunes carries tracks that I want, while Emusic does not. So iTunes wins.

Plus: subscriptions suck. Period. I absolutely hate that feeling that I HAVE TO download X songs in a month to get my money's worth. Plus, being able to avoid the hassle of having to cancel my subscription when my interest wanes.

Re:Note...

[lithron]

No, the cool thing is to support something that makes sense.

iTunes is close to making a lot of sense. They let you purchase one song at a time, or an entire albumn, your choice. And you can download it. And you can burn the mp3s/AAC files to a cd if you want.. LEGALLY!

Many of us aren't against the RIAA nearly as much as we're against paying $17 for a cd that has been on the market for over 10 years, and only has 12 songs on it. On iTunes I can download that same albumn for under $12. Or I can pick and choose the songs from it for less than that.

Com'on now.. this isn't about 'Down with the man', this is about getting something for fair market value. And as 14 million dollars (a tad less actually, because its $0.99 per track) goes to show, MANY people think $0.99 a track is fair market value.

Re:One million..... not that much

[overunderunderdone]

One of Apple's spokesmen acknowledged that iTMS didn't make any profit but called it a "trojan horse" to promote iPods and also Quicktime, MPEG4 and AAC. iTMS isn't intended to be a cash cow (at least not at present) but a component in a larger strategy. First and most obviously it drives iPod sales. Secondly, and in the long run more importantly, it will hamper Microsoft from using it's monopoly to dominate media formats the way they currently dominate office document formats.

Re:Rock On! And A Question For The Community...

[Graff]

Almost definitely better? So which is it, almost or definitely? ...
Online distribution is nice, but it's more important to also have your CDs available in stores across the country.

Yeah yeah, sue me for not being completely coherent! :-)

I believe that I was basically trying to get across what you have said. The service provided by CD Baby is a great deal, but possibly just short of being better than a deal through a large mainstream music label. Look at it this way, with CD Baby you will almost certainly do decently but it's too small a label to really help you become a mega-star. On the other hand a major label can make you a mega-star, but it's very unlikely that you will make it huge.

It's a risk verses reward thing. CD Baby - low risk, low possibility of a huge reward. Major label - huge risk, higher possibility of a huge reward. The way things are going in the music industry I'd prefer the lower but probably more steady rewards of CD Baby rather than the higher but very uncertain rewards of a major label.