2 Million Songs Bought From iMS, 4,300 New Songs Added

by , 2:30 PM EDT, May 14th, 2003

It took a couple of more days than the first million tunes, but Apple has announced that some 2 million songs have been downloaded and paid for at Apple's iTunes Music Store. The 2nd million milestone took just 16 days, with the company having sold one million songs during the first seven of those days. While representing a slowdown in sales, it's only a small one, and suggests that the first week's results were not a fluke.

When the first million was announced, Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group said: "Our internal measure of success was having the iTunes Music Store sell one million songs in the first month. To do this in one week is an over-the-top success." The company has now doubled that first month's goal in a little more than two weeks.

The iTunes Music Store is currently available only to Mac OS X users in the US, with support for Windows users coming later this year. We reported earlier today that Apple is reportedly working on European licensing as well.

Apple also announced that the company had added some 4,300 songs to the store's existing catalog of 200,000 tunes. In the company's press release, Steve Jobs says that new songs are being added every day, but the company has only officially announced the addition of 3,200 songs the first week and 4,300 songs yesterday. "More songs!" has been one of the calls from many Mac users, and adding those songs has been high on the list of priorities for the company. During the original media event announcing the service, Steve Jobs said his company was adding songs as fast as it could. From Apple:

Apple today announced that over two million songs have been purchased and downloaded from its revolutionary iTunes Music Store since its debut 16 days ago. Continuing the trend set during the first week, over half of the songs purchased to date were purchased as albums, further dispelling concerns that selling music on a per-track basis will destroy album sales.

"Response to the iTunes Music Store has been phenomenal -- we've clearly hit a chord with users," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We're adding new songs every day, giving music lovers even more reasons to legally download their favorite music."

The iTunes Music Store lets customers quickly find, purchase and download the music they want for just 99 cents per song, without subscription fees. The iTunes Music Store offers groundbreaking personal use rights, including burning songs onto an unlimited number of CDs for personal use, listening to songs on an unlimited number of iPods, playing songs on up to three Macintosh computers, and using songs in any application on the Mac, including iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD.

Over 4,300 new songs were added to the iTunes Music Store yesterday, including five albums from The Doors; new featured artist Fischerspooner's album "#1" plus an exclusive remix of their hit "Emerge;" new albums from Cold, Lizz Wright, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; pre-release tracks from upcoming albums by Michelle Branch, Da Brat, Jesse Harris and Kenna; and, completing her catalog of music now available on the store, Alanis Morissette's albums "Under Rug Swept" and "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie." Additionally, albums representing diverse genres of music -- from rock and alternative to jazz and classical -- were added from artists including John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Nina Simone, Paul Oakenfold and Staind.

You can get more information on the iTunes Music Store at AppleMusic.com.

The Mac Observer Spin:

This milestone may be even more significant than the first. As we said above, the 2nd million took two days longer to achieve, but it really suggests that the initial success of the iMS is more than just pent-up demand. Of course, sales in the second and third month will be even more telling on this front, but Apple has to be delighted with the results so far.

AppleMusic