Apple has announced that its European iTunes Music Stores — UK, France, and Germany — sold more than 800,000 songs in its first week of operations. The company’s press release includes a direct challenge to heretofore European market leader OD2, claiming that Apple’s UK store sold more than 16 times the UK-based OD2 in the same period. From Apple’s press release:
Apple today announced that music fans in the UK, France and Germany have purchased and downloaded more than 800,000 songs from the iTunes Music Store since its launch one week ago, with more than 450,000 sold in the UK alone. With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features, personal use rights and breakthrough pricing of just €0.99 and £0.79, the iTunes Music Store is the best way for PC and Mac users in the UK, France and Germany to legally discover, purchase and download music online.
"After selling over 800,000 songs during its first week, iTunes is Europe’s top online music store," said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. "In the UK alone, iTunes sold more than 450,000 songs in the last week — 16 times as many as OD2, its closest competitor."
Apple’s press release also includes a statement from 80’s alternative icon, the Pixies, who chose to release their first new music in 13 years exclusively on the iTunes Music Store:
"By distributing our first new song in 13 years exclusively on iTunes, we were able to quickly and inexpensively make it available to millions of fans in the United States and Europe," said Ken Goes, manager of the Pixies. "One week after its release, we are thrilled at the response from iTunes users that have helped to make Bam Thwok a top seller across four countries."
Apple launched the long-awaited European iTMS last week with a press event from Steve Jobs. The European version of the store took substantially longer to launch than its US counterpart due to licensing issues across the many different regions within the European Union. In the UK in particular, Apple has had difficulty coming to terms with the countries comparatively powerful independent labels.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Competition between Apple, OD2, Napster, as well as Microsoft, was expected to make Apple’s later entry into the European market more difficult than its market-creating launch in the US. It would seem that was not the case, and that Apple has had pretty much the same success on both sides of The Pond.
Note, too, that though the UK is the world’s third biggest market behind the US (#1) and Japan (#2), the French and German Stores themselves sold roughly 175,000 songs each. That’s almost half the UK’s performance, and definitely some very impressive numbers from both markets. We have no doubt that both Jerry Lewis and David Hasselhoff are delighted.