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iTunes Music Store Hits 350 Million Download Mark

First on TMO - iTunes Music Store Hits 350 Million Download Mark

by , 1:20 AM EDT, April 15th, 2005

Customers of Apple's iTunes Music Store (iTMS) have purchased and downloaded more than 350 million songs, a transcript from Wednesday's conference call with has analysts revealed.

Unlike previous announcements that Apple's online service had hit certain milestones, Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer made the announcement as a quick passing comment during his opening remarks to analysts Wednesday. The Mac Observer found the comment in reviewing a transcript of the conference call late Thursday.

"Last week we crossed the 350 million songs download milestone and despite the increased competition, our share of (the) online music market in the U.S. has remained at or above the 70% level as measured by Nielsen SoundScan," Mr. Oppenheimer said.

Nielsen/SoundScan has confirmed to TMO that it does not and has never broken down online music market share figures, despite Mr. Oppenheimer's comment. In actually fact, Apple is calculating it's own market share number based on its knowledge of downloads from its iTMS and subtracting from the total number of online music service downloads reported weekly by Nielsen/SoundScan.

An Apple spokesperson was not immediately available for comment to confirm the exact date the company hit the 350 million download mark. If it happened on Wednesday, April 6, the company has sold some 1.38 million songs daily in the last 36 days.

Apple last reported it surpassed 300 million in online music sales on March 2.

The iTMS is available for Mac and Windows personal computers and works exclusively with Apple's line of iPod digital media devices. The iTMS is available in 15 countries. In the U.S., the service features more than one million songs and more than 9,000 audiobooks.

iTunes Music Store Key Dates
April 28, 2003 Apple Launches iTunes Music Store
May 6, 2003 One million songs sold on iTMS
May 14, 2003 Two million songs sold on iTMS
June 23, 2003 Five million songs sold on iTMS
September 8, 2003 Ten million songs sold on iTMS
October 16, 2003 Apple & Pepsi launch giveaway of 100 million free songs
October 20, 2003 One million copies of iTunes for Windows downloaded in less than four days
November 6, 2003 1.5 million songs sold on iTMS in one week
December 15, 2003 25 million songs sold on iTMS
March 15, 2004 50 million songs sold on iTMS
April 28, 2004 Over 70 million songs sold on iTMS
May 5, 2004 3.3 million songs sold on iTMS in one week
June 15, 2004 Apple launches iTMS in UK, France & Germany
June 23, 2004 iTMS in Europe sells 800,000 songs in first week
July 12, 2004 100 million songs sold on iTMS
August 10, 2004 iTMS catalog tops one million songs
October 14, 2004 150 million songs sold on iTMS
October 26, 2004 Apple launches iTMS in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain
November 30, 2004 Apple launches iTMS in Canada
December 16, 2004 200 million songs sold on iTMS
January 6, 2005 Apple launches iTMS in Ireland
January 24, 2005 250 million songs sold on iTMS
March 2, 2005 300 million songs sold on iTMS
April 6, 2005 350 million songs sold on iTMS

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Guest
Fri Apr 15, 2005 8:06 am Subject: thats a pace of 500 million a year

and growing. not bad.


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Close Name:jimothy Posts: 612 Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Fri Apr 15, 2005 8:29 am Subject: Key dates

What day did iTMS become available for Windows? That'd be a useful fact to add to the key dates, above. (Was it October 16, 2003?)


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Close Name:rea1itycheck Posts: 23 Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Fri Apr 15, 2005 8:52 am Subject: iTunes is Doomed!

It's too popular. We all know that if Apple is too good, people like me will start using it. Thereby, it's doomed! Otherwise, how will I fill up my new iPod? Oh, I forgot, I can also fill it up with my CDs. Doomed!

RealityCheck


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Close Name:Halix Posts: 38 Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Fri Apr 15, 2005 9:56 am Subject: And still accelerating

They are now at almost 50 Million a month! Up from 20 Million a month a year ago… not bad, given that competition has massively grown since then.


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Close Name:jimothy Posts: 612 Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:00 am Subject: iLemmings unite!

If we assume an average of 30 songs per user (just a wild-ass guess), that's nearly 12 million iLemmings!

-- jimothy, proud to be an iLemming


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Close Name:Engine Joe Posts: 413 Joined: 29 Jun 2004
Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:10 am Subject: Of course...

The numbers for the 1st Q. of calendar 2005 are heavily augmented by the Pepsi promotion. I suspect that's why the numbers have spiked so high recently.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:20 am Subject: Can you hear it?

That faint clicking sound you hear is Chris Gorog, CEO of Napster updating his resume. Freudenschade for everyone! : D

". . .we fully expect iPod’s share of the hard-drive device market to have a substantial decline during this Christmas selling season because virtually every MP3 player sold in America will support Napster To Go this fall — except the iPod."

- Chris Gorog (Engadget Interview)


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Close Name:DocRoss Posts: 33 Joined: 06 May 2004
Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:22 am Subject: Pepsi Promo

If I remember correctly, Apple usually does not count free downloads in their counts, so the free promo songs shouldn't be an issue.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Apr 15, 2005 11:58 am Subject: iTMS is Doomed

This information is further proof that iLemmings will be left in the cold once the proprietary iTMS and iPod disappear.

Sorry folks, couldn't resist a swipe at RC.


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Close Name:BlueDjinn -   TMO Staff Posts: 708 Joined: 24 Jun 2001
Fri Apr 15, 2005 12:06 pm Subject: Total iTMS & iPod Sales Chart

For those interested:

http://brainwrap.com/otherstuff/itms_ipod_sales.html

Includes total iTMS sales, avg. iTMS sales per day, total iPod sales and quarterly iPod sales.

FWIW, the iTMS for Windows launched around late October 2003.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Apr 15, 2005 12:15 pm Subject:

Sorry to say I told you so again, Reality Check, but I explained that Napster/Creative/Microsoft's Janus format would pose absolutely no threat to the iTMS. If you'd listened to me, you wouldn't have made yourself look like a fool by declairing that each of those three things up there would destroy the iTMS. Better luck next time.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Apr 15, 2005 12:24 pm Subject: Doomed?

If the iTMS is a failure as so many so-called analysts and toothless trolls declared, then it must be the most spectacular and profitable failure ever!


On track for half a billion downloads by July, 2005.

- Ampar


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Close Name:Guest
Sat Apr 16, 2005 10:22 am Subject:

what do u mean by 30 songs per person


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Close Name:DawnTreader -   TMO Staff Posts: 15039 Joined: 04 Jan 2002
Sun Apr 17, 2005 1:26 am Subject:

I'll say 1 billion songs served by April 16th of next year.


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