Apple iTunes sells 200m Songs!

Quakester2000

December 22, 2004

GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us that the Apple iTunes
music store has sold a whopping 200 million music tracks. In October Apple
reported that it had sold 150 million tracks which were averaging 4 million song
sales a week being sold. The current announcement by Apple sets the average sale
of songs per week to around 4.76 million.

In October Apple had
already forecast that it would sell 200 million tracks by the end of the year
but it has managed to beat even its forecast target. With Christmas looming
and many more people likely to receive Apple iPod units there is a chance
for another 10 million songs to be downloaded from Apple iTunes by the end of
the year.

Although sales of tracks
may be doing well, Apple still hasn't said how many customers it actually has
registered with its iTunes music service. iPods sales are also on the rise with
analysts prediction that Apple will sell 4million iPods this quarter, Apple has
now sold a whopping 5.4million since end of September 2004 beating that
forecast. With around 9 million iPods sold to date at current track sales that
would equate to 22 songs on average per iPod user, although not everyone using
the Apple iTunes service has an iPod.

Apple"s iTunes Music Store has notched up more than 200m paid-for song downloads, the company said today.The last total Apple made public came in mid-October. Then, ITMS customers around the world had bought 150m songs, at an average rate of 4m songs a week. Today"s figure raises that rate to 4.76m a week.

In October, Apple forecast it would sell
more than 200m songs by the end of the year, so it has clearly met and
exceeded that target. And with just over two weeks to go, there"s plenty
of time for iPod owners - particularly all those who are going to find one
under the Chrimble Tree on 25 December - to download around 10m more.What
Apple doesn"t say is how many users ITMS has, since that"s a better
measure of the store"s broader success than simply the number of songs
sold. From a revenue perspective, it"s all about sales - ie. the total
number of downloads - but if the store is to survive beyond the honeymoon
period it needs to establish a solid user base.

Analysts
expect Apple to sell over 4m iPods this quarter, and it sold at least
5.76m since the device"s launch to the end of September 2004. Call that 9m
iPods to date. That"s an average download level of 22 songs - roughly two
albums" worth - per iPod owner. And since many of them won"t have bought
songs from Apple, that suggests a pretty healthy purchasing rate on behalf
of those who have.