by , 12:40 AM EDT, May 10th, 2005
Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are the newest international markets with their own iTunes Music Stores (iTMS), Apple Computer announced Tuesday. The four new additions bring the total number of iTMS to 19.
The new stores feature songs from all four major music companies and over 1,000 independent record labels, the company said. Since its launch just two years ago, the iTMS has more than 70% of the global music market and has sold more than 400 million songs.
In conjunction with the iTMS launch in Switzerland, Apple and the global financial firm UBS announced a promotion to give every Swiss citizen a free song download as part of their new "UBS Generation" and "UBS Campus" packages. UBS is offering song cards for music downloads in all of their branches, which can be used instead of a credit card to purchase tracks from the iTMS.
In Switzerland, iPod users will pay 1.50 Swiss Francs for each music download, or at Monday's currency rate, $1.24 U.S. dollars. Users in Sweden will pay 9.00 Kronor (US$1.26), and those in Denmark and Norway will pay 8.00 Kronor (US$1.12). Users in the United States pay 99 cents for individual music downloads.
Apple launched its last international store in January with the debut of its online store for Ireland. In addition to the four new international markets, Apple has online music stores in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom.
The iTMS is available for Mac and Windows personal computers and works exclusively with Apple's line of iPod digital media devices. In the U.S., the service features more than 1.5 million songs and more than 9,000 audiobooks.
In its press release, Apple acknowledged it has surpassed 400 million music downloads, worldwide. The company last said it had exceeded 350 million iTMS downloads on April 15. Upon hitting 350 million and 400 million, Apple did not generating press releases. It is not known exactly what date Apple exceeded both plateaus, making it impossible to calculate exactly how many songs the company has been selling per day or per month.
| 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 13, 2005 | 350 million songs sold on iTMS | May 10, 2005 | Apple launches iTMS in Denmark, Norway, Sweden & Switzerland |