iTunes Europe sells 800,000 tracks in it's first week

June 27, 2004

This is hard to grasp. Just launched iTunes busted a move last week and it is killing the competition. Music fans in Britain, France and Germany downloaded more than 800,000 tracks from Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes online music store as of last Wednesday.

"In the U.K. alone, iTunes sold more than 450,000 songs in the last week -- 16 times as many as OD2, its closest competitor," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
Apple launched iTunes in France, Germany and the U.K. on June 15 to much fanfare.
Battered music executives are pinning hopes on services such as iTunes, Roxio's Napster and Wippit to convert Internet file-sharers into customers and reverse the slump in recorded music sales.
Apple reported earlier this year its U.S. iTunes store sold 3.3 million downloads in its peak week and over 85 million since launching in April, 2003.
In contrast, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) reported download sales for all industry-backed UK services topped 500,000 in the first five and a half months of 2004.

Go get 'em Steve! I guess Bill Gates is committing Hari-Cari as we read this. No, on second thought he is probably playing bridge. Hmmm "Battered music executives" surely they mean "brain dead" not battered. Read the whole story from Reuters.

Source: Reuters