by Daniel Miller, 10:15 AM EST, December 9th, 2003
The iTunes Music Store has hit another milestone since its ambitious opening in April of this year. Monday, Apple Computer announced that over 20 million songs have now been sold online through its service.
One of the early worries about selling music online was that complete album sales would disappear in favor of the popular singles from an artist. If the indications from Apple's digital music service are representative of the public's buying habits, this fear may be unfounded. From a News.com article:
Apple director of marketing Peter Lowe said that 45 percent of songs downloaded through iTunes had been sold as part of a full album, rather than in single song form. That indicates many people are still interested in purchasing large numbers of songs, or full albums, despite having a la carte options, Lowe said.
The article also revealed research that showed iTMS customers actually bought more music than their offline counterparts during the first four months it was operating. Where the average teen would buy a CD every couple of months, the average iTMS buyer would buy the equivalent of one per month.
Since Apple's service is now also on WIndows and leading the market, it will be interesting to see what the statistics show about how the public really feels about buying music online. The author of the News.com article points out that your mileage may vary with respect to iTMS' sales translating across the market because "...Apple buyers tend to have higher incomes and greater technological sophistication than the PC audience as a whole..." Oh well, two out of three ain't bad.