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Music Businesses Media Apple

iTMS Europe: 800,000 Tracks In A Week 388

Posted by timothy from the but-are-those-metric-tracks dept.
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."
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iTMS Europe: 800,000 Tracks In A Week More

iTMS Europe: 800,000 Tracks In A Week

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  • In other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by azmatsci ( 759463 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:40AM (#9508593)
    The RIAA still doesn't understand why singles are selling so well, so sues 428 more people.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:26PM (#9509186)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @01:01PM (#9509663)
        It would appear that whoever these artists are they just admitted that their albums aren't good enough to buy as a whole and they are just carried by one or two songs.

        I don't think that's necessarily what they're saying.

        Let's say we're talking about popular music, music that gets radio play. Maybe two or three songs on an album do well on the radio. Now, does that necessarily mean the other songs on the album are bad? No, it just means they're not radio material. Maybe they're too long, or too quiet, or whatever.

        When music is available a la carte, people can go out and buy just the track they heard on the radio. But in doing so, they might miss out on some other really good music.

        This has happened to me many time. I've bought an album because I wanted this track or that one, and in the end some of the other tracks became my favorites.

        (Of course, some albums just aren't that great. But I don't think that's universally true. For every album you can name that's got one hit song on it, somebody else can name one that's solid all the way through.)

        iTunes gets around this by giving you nice, long, high-quality previews of every available track. So when I saw the Garden State trailer and I wanted to get the song used in it, I listened to 30-second slices of the other songs from the album and discovered that they were all pretty darned good. So I bought the whole album.

        See? It works both ways.

  • I'd be interested to see the Windows/Mac breakdown (Score:5, Interesting)

    by byolinux ( 535260 ) * on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:40AM (#9508595) Journal
    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.

    • Anecdotes are not statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fiannaFailMan ( 702447 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @01:02PM (#9509678) Journal
      I take your point, but I wish people would stop citing 'of all the people I know' as if that were a representative sample. If you work in desktop publishing, then it's a good bet that most of the 'people you know' will be Mac users. If you work as an accountant, then most of the 'people you know' will be PC users. If you're a TCAD software developer then most of the 'people you know' will be UNIX users.

      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.

    • That's because Mac users will actually pay for music. PC users steal all of theirs. :D
      (j/k, of course).

  • Computer Revolution Ignited? (Score:3, Funny)

    by VinceWuzHere ( 733075 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:43AM (#9508627)
    quote "Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II"

    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...

  • The Hidden Data... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:44AM (#9508642)
    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.

  • Great in comparison to others, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06NO@SPAMemail.com> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:45AM (#9508659)
    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.
    • Uhm... I'm not sure how likely it is that the UK, France and Germany will reach that figure until the actual Euro-wide launch has taken place. There are considerbly less people in the UK, France and Germany than there are in the US. Without doing any calculations, per capita I would say 800,000 seems about right - maybe a bit under.

      • Re:Great in comparison to others, but ... (Score:5, Informative)

        by TrueBuckeye ( 675537 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:04PM (#9508918) Journal
        If anyone really cares, this is how it breaks down:

        Population of Germany, France and UK: 203,119,530
        Population of US: 293,027,571

        Which gives us
        3.94 downloads per 1000 people for Europe
        8.53 downloads per 1000 people for the US

        This assumes 800,000 downloads for Gr, Fr, and UK compared to 2.5 mil for the US.

        Populations are the 2004 Estimates from The CIA World Factbook
    • not yet up to the 2.5 million a week from the US

      to be fair america has a few more residents than the UK. we're generally at about 60 million people. america is just over 290 million.

      so basically our population is nearly 5 times less, and we bought only 3 times less songs. looks like we've got you beat per head :)

      dave

  • Someone wanna lend me $300? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RabidChicken ( 684107 ) <andrew @ a n d r e w s tuckey.com> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:46AM (#9508669) Homepage
    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.

  • A Small, Nimble Adversary (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:47AM (#9508676) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:17PM (#9509080)
      It's funny, but Apple is getting into the consumer electronics business at a much deeper level than, say, Dell or Gateway.

      When Dell or Gateway say "we're in the consumer electronics business," what they mean is "we sell consumer electronics." They compete against Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. That's a hard business to be in.

      When Microsoft says "we're in the consumer electronics business," what they mean is "we make the software that allows someone else to make consumer electronic devices, and take a cut." Nobody likes this because nobody wants to pay someone else for their IP - and nobody wants to fund a competitor, either (ie: Microsoft).

      When Apple says "we're in the consumer electronics business," they actually design, build, and sell products that are end-user targeted. They're like Panasonic, Pioneer, or Sony, in that they actually create and sell products. Except that the manufacturers don't have their own stores, but whatever.

      What Apple's done is taken control of personal music distribution. What that means is they're an end-to-end solution provider of music to the individual. Buy music from iTMS, play music on your machine with iTMS, play music on your stereo with Airport Express, and bring your music with you with the iPod. Now with the BMW thing, you integrate your iPod with your car (at a minimal level).

      Likely the next iPod will be an Airport Express-enabled, so you can wirelessly stream music from your iPod to your stereo. Then there are even more gadgets and doodads that extend the music "ecosystem," to use a somewhat abused word.

      It'll be an interesting to see what's coming up...those guys are full of surprises, which is what invention (and innovation) is all about.

  • This may be a "bad thing" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sdo1 ( 213835 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:47AM (#9508685) Journal
    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

    • Re:This may be a "bad thing" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jkabbe ( 631234 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:51AM (#9508734)
      Even if all the other stores go out of business Apple will still have competition: file sharing networks.

      Jobs seemed to be the first major player in the field to understand that you need to offer a competitive alternative to get people to use a store instead of Kazaa. I doubt that view will change anytime soon.

      • Re:This may be a "bad thing" (Score:5, Informative)

        by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @01:10PM (#9509779)
        I assume you've seen Steve Jobs give his iTunes pitch. He's done it several times now at various events.

        It basically goes like this:

        People want to get their music one track at a time off the Internet. We know this because people are doing it like crazy, using these various underground services.

        We want to give people what they want. But just giving them music-over-the-Internet isn't enough. Subscription services suck, too-restrictive licensing sucks, et cetera, et cetera.

        Here's why illegal downloading is cool: (At this point he lists five or six key things. It's free, it's convenient, whatever.) But here's why illegal downloading sucks: (No art, bad encoding, hard to find stuff, and it's also stealing.)

        Then he proceeds to explain how iTunes addresses those points, one by one. iTunes isn't free, but it's cheap. On the other hand, it's way easier to find things, the quality is much better, you get art with your tracks, and it's "good karma."

        He actually builds the business case for iTunes from scratch, right there in front of you. It's a really cool presentation.

        Whether you're an Apple fan or not, whether you're an iTunes fan or not, you have to admire Steve Jobs' ability to give shareholders, investors, partners, and end-users a well-thought-out, persuasive presentation.

        All those dumbasses who think PowerPoint is the second coming could learn a lot from him. :-)

      • Re:This may be a "bad thing" (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dasmegabyte ( 267018 ) <das@OHNOWHATSTHISdasmegabyte.org> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @01:48PM (#9510296) Homepage Journal
        Actually, the iTMS' trick is compete with free downloads through file sharing as well as traditional CD sales.

        They're doing so by offering a huge catalog with instant, reliable avaialability at (moderately) high quality for a "pretty fair" price. I don't bother with the hassles (legal and logistic) of file sharing any more. I still "borrow" CDs to add to my library, but for my pick and choose singles downloads, I'll look to Apple.

    • Re:This may be a "bad thing" (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      there are competitions. there are other music distributors, both online and offline, in europe. apple is succeeding because it's providing something consumers want.

      if consumers, in the future, decide that apple doesn't provide what they want, apple will fail and better competitors will prosper.

      we should start worrying if apple starts to leverage their dominance in iTMS to somehow restrict consumer choice in music so that only place you can buy music is via apple. (like M$ with OS.)

    • Re:This may be a "bad thing" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eSims ( 723865 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:56AM (#9508806) Homepage
      What you ar leaving out is the balance brought in by P2P sharing. While illegal, were it not for P2P (Napster, then Kazaa, Gnutella, etc) iTunes would not have 99c songs...

      Though iTunes is the dominant factor in legal music downloads, the sharing aspect will always keep a bit of balance to the system.

      That said, I am glad to see someone prove that this is a viable business as it lends credence to the statement "Give me a legal alternative" that many P2Pers have made.

      My $.02 inflation adjusted... take it for what it's worth.

    • 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.

      You mean kind of like Wal-Mart in the U.S? They capture 10% [pbs.org] of all cd sales and have the clout to demand a sanatized version of the lyrics, song titles and cover art?

      iTunes often caries both versions a song and even shows 'racy' versions [technewsworld.com] of videos should you choose to watch them. Image that - choice. What will they think of next?
    • Dude, look how far the computer industry came when competition dried up. With the advent of Windows, Office, and the x86/PC architecture, computers became standardized enough that it was adopted by hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

      Is that a bad thing?

  • AOL & iTunes (Score:3, Informative)

    by Celt ( 125318 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:48AM (#9508705) Journal
    AOL UK and Apple have a deal to promote to DSL customers throuhg Keyword: itunes, where customers can download itunes :-)
  • Anybody knows if there was any announcement of iTunes coming to Canada eventually?

  • iTunes for some... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spoonani ( 786547 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:51AM (#9508739)
    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.
    • Why do you believe music is a global art when poetry, literature, and even cinema isn't?

      Or are all of these also global arts?
      • Why do you believe music is a global art when poetry, literature, and even cinema isn't?

        Movies (at least a lot of American animation and action-type movies) are largely global. Television certainly is; wasn't "Mannix" shown in over 150 countries at one point? Anyway, poetry and literature don't always translate, even within their own language, but a John Lee Hooker boogie beat can be understood by anybody. Well, not Ivy Leaguers, of course, but anybody with a pulse.

  • The winner (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phalse phace ( 454635 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:51AM (#9508745)
    And Apple also beat it's closest competitor OD2 [ondemanddistribution.com] (On Demand Distribution), getting 16 times as many downloads.

    Guess it didn't really matter that Napster beat Apple to launch there.

    I wonder if the RIAA's listening?

  • As an Apple acolyte I must say, that the UK is doing well to embrace iTMS Europe. France and Germany should follow UKs example.

    Only through iTMS will both countries reach the musical zen that UK is about to reach! France and Germany dont despair you need but open iTunes and download more.

    Oh here's the obligatory tag for those who missed it...
  • A bit off topic, but it will come up anyways, so mod me however you wish:

    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 .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 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.

  • The exclusive Pixies track (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kerincosford ( 228730 ) <kerin@@@pullhere...co...uk> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:58AM (#9508836)
    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.
  • At first I assumed iTMS was a rail company laying a lot of new track... :)
  • I'd say something about this, but I'm afraid I'd be labeled an Apple Fanboy [slashdot.org].

    Since I don't live in the U.K, France or Germany, and haven't ever bought music from the iTunes store, I guess I don't really have anything to say about this anyway... other than this is really a bit of a non-story, isn't it ?

    Even the biggest competition Apple might have had in Europe decided to leave the business [yahoo.com] rather than compete with Apple on this. The article cites "Apple and Napster", but really, Napster? OD2 was worried a

  • Apple's slice? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:04PM (#9508921) Homepage Journal
    On each $0.99 retail Apple charges per song, shares are taken by the copyright holder (artist/label/RIAAbot), the retail outlet (iTMS/Virgin/Songhut), the finance transactor (Visa/telco/Guido) and Apple. What's Apple's share per song, their profit on these huge sales? Do they take a loss, leading sales of iPods and some Macs?

    • Re:Apple's slice? (Score:4, Informative)

      by gerardrj ( 207690 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:19PM (#9509109) Journal
      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.
      • The article mentions that Apple renegotiated with the record labels. Now that Apple has proven its sales power, it likely renegotiated with every other party to the transaction. So where's a link to the current Apple take from the sales?

  • A question to our European readers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:05PM (#9508939) Journal
    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?

    • Re:A question to our European readers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fpillet ( 41353 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:56PM (#9509598) Homepage Journal
      Maybe just because iTMS matches users needs? It's not just because it's Apple, otherwise the world would be 80% Mac.

      iTMS is (as are all Apple products) extremely well designed and they managed to produce exactly what people were waiting for. The complete chain (iTMS iTunes iPod) is perfectly integrated and even my mother can use it.
    • Don't know what the old-services will do, but they will have to fix a few things.

      1. Not cost twice as much a iTunes!
      2. Have a bigger selection of music!
      3. Advetise them selves more, since a lot of people think iTunes is first online music provider in Europe.

  • Can the US purchase there? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:05PM (#9508941) Homepage Journal
    Here's what I've been wondering:

    I'm in the US and at the bottom of the iTMS home pages, I can select which country's store I want to see (USA, UK, France, Germany). When I select one, I'm taken to the store.

    Can I, from the US, purchase songs from the foreign stores? I know I could try this myself, but I've been a bit leery. Anyone else tried this and have it work or otherwise? Each country store has some unique music not found on the others, and I'd like to buy some of those tracks.

  • Phrase that another way (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zastrossi ( 603991 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:12PM (#9509015) Homepage
    And the headline reads: All of Europe buys equivalent of 65,000 CDs this week. Europe buys roughly 3 billion recorded music units (PDF) [impalasite.org] (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.

    • D'oh, my math was off by a bit because I mis-read the PDF I referenced. Here are more accurate numbers:

      If they sell an average of 800,000 songs for the year (unlikely, I think), then that's the equivalent of 3.5 million CDs a year. That sounds impressive, until you consider that Germany, France and the UK bought about 725 million CDs (PDF) [impalasite.org] in 2001. With those numbers, the iTunes sales would represent a world-changing 0.4% of music sales in those three countries.

  • dept. jokes (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:40PM (#9509369)

    "from the but-are-those-metric-tracks dept."

    yes, complete with iambic pentametres [sic]...

  • Two people... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @01:10PM (#9509772)
    I know two people that saw the amazing usability and ease-of-use of iTunes, asked me what the "good thing was that is different about iTunes" and over lunch I explained that there is a thing called a GUI and a science about "Usability". Things clicked. They went to the apple store on their own and two Powerbooks were sold. Their dell boxes are on ebay.

    • iTMS really is astonishingly easy to use. I was able to use it while quite drunk (celebrating my birthday, which was on the launch day). I didn't even need to enter my credit card details (I could use my Apple Store account) and start shopping instantly. I added five albums to my collection that evening (well, morning. I think it was about 3am when I, encouraged by those helping my celebrate, decided to play with iTMS). It seems I have quite good musical taste when drunk...

  • Are the iTMS Europe servers located in Europe ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jodka ( 520060 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @02:56PM (#9511135)
    Just curious, does Apple deliver iTunes Europe purchases from servers in the U.S. or do they have a European server farm for that ? Is global connectivity now good enough that servers in California can deliver that volume of data around the globe to Europe at about the same throughput and latency as could servers located in Europe ?

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