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iTunes Sales Show No Signs of Slowing

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

March 2, 2005, 11:59 AM

Daily music sales from Apple's iTunes Music Store continue to accelerate as Apple announced Wednesday it had surpassed 300 million downloads. In late January, the service announced its 250 millionth download, which figures out to be about 1.5 million songs downloaded each day from iTunes.

Additionally, Apple announced Wednesday that its exclusive digital benefit single, "Across the Universe," debuted at number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song is the most successful digital track ever in its first week of release. "We're honored to offer 'Across the Universe' exclusively on the iTunes Music Store with all proceeds going to tsunami survivors and their families," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Applications.

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By school1012

posted Mar 3, 2005 - 5:27 PM

No matter how many songs they sell, I stil will not but an ipod. I don't want to be suckered into a dictatorship

Score: 0

By px208

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 5:26 PM

How many of these iTunes downloads are "free" giveaways that they been budling with everything from Pepsi to Pizza.. wouldn't that artfically inflate the #'s?

Score: 0

By RobertM

edited Mar 2, 2005 - 8:19 PM

Last time I checked, to get the "free" songs, you still needed to have an account, which means you either had to have bought an iTunes (gift) card, started an account with a credit card, etc., and so these people are likely to actually buy from the store.

Plus, the free songs aren't normally ones that people would think they want (like Jennifer Lopez or Alicia Keys or something); for example, right now there's American Hi-Fi, which hasn't really been popular since "Flavor of the Weak", and I even had to look them up to know that, and TaMayra, of whom I've never hard.

Point being, I don't think free songs count as a significant part of their numbers, if they're including them in these statistics.

EDIT: Oops, I see you meant the Pepsi-and-friends free song thing. I think you still need to have an account, though the cap is probably sufficent to start one.

Score: 0

By compuoddity

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 12:12 PM

What's really scary is that they're in talks to raise prices. How greedy can the labels be?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7048053/

Score: 0

By Morsel

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 3:12 PM

Grand. Time to go on Kazaa again! When will they learn?!

Score: 0

By yohimbe9

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 12:36 PM

They've been trying to do that for a while now. I think there was an article last summer saying pretty much the same thing. We'll have to wait to see if anything actually happens though.

Score: 0

By eoswald

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 1:16 PM

FWIW.. Apple has been adamant that song prices will NOT increase and Steve Jobs if I'm not mistaken scolded the music industry over being too greedy.

Score: 0

By speedmeister

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 1:56 PM

It's seems to me that so many people have bought into Apple's Ipod and itunes that Apple has a certain amount of power over the record labels in setting prices. If they refuse to sell their music via iTunes where are they going to sell their music? There are a lot people that use iTunes exclusively. Until Apple's competitors get better penetration I think that the record labels will have a hard time bargaining with Apple.

Score: 0

By eoswald

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 8:14 PM

That is a very valid point. I haven't seen comparisons... however my guess is that Apple probably sells as much as 3, 4, or 5 times the music of its closest competitor. So.. Apple does hold some clout in setting prices.

Score: 0

By Skylor

posted Mar 2, 2005 - 12:11 PM

It's becuase iTunes and apple are the s***!

Score: 0

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