A pple has made it official. The company has announced that more than one million songs have been purchased online in the new iTunes Music Store. The company also says that half of the 200,000 titles that are available were purchased at least once. Backing up the announcement is statements of support from Roger Ames, chairman and CEO of Warner Music Groupis, and the CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris.
Apple also says that it has taken orders for more than 110,000 new iPods, and that an additional 20,000 were bought in retail stores last week. Apple said when it introduced the new line of iPods that it had sold some 700,000 of the MP3 players since they were introduced in October of 2001, not counting the new sales mentioned today.
Lastly, the company is announcing that some 3,200 songs will be added tomorrow to the 200,000 songs currently hosted by the iTunes Music Store. Having more songs has been the thing most requested by TMO readers since the Music Store was announced.
Todayis news has helped push Appleis stock up more than 5%. Currently, AAPL is trading at 15.258, up .808 (+ 5.59%), on heavy volume of 13,052,755 trading hands.
From Apple:
Apple today announced that its revolutionary iTunes Music Store sold over one million songs during its first week. Over half of the songs were purchased as albums, dispelling concerns that selling music on a per-track basis will destroy album sales. In addition, over half of the 200,000 songs offered on the iTunes Music Store were purchased at least once, demonstrating the breadth of musical tastes served by Appleis groundbreaking online store. Apple also reported that over one million copies of iTunes 4 have been downloaded, and that it has received orders for over 110,000 new third-generation iPods since their introduction a week ago, with music lovers snapping up more than 20,000 of them from stores in the U.S. this weekend.
"Hitting one million songs in less than a week was totally unexpected," said Roger Ames, Warner Music Groupis chairman and CEO. "Apple has shown music fans, artists and the music industry as a whole that there really is a successful and easy way of legally distributing music over the Internet."
"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," said Doug Morris, Universal Music Groupis CEO. "Apple definitely got it right with the iTunes Music Store."
Apple also announced that tomorrow, May 6, the iTunes Music Store will be adding over 3,200 new tracks, including major new album releases such as Jack Johnsonis "On and On," Andrea Bocelliis "Tosca" and Fleetwood Macis "Say You Will," as well as pre-release tracks from upcoming albums by artists David Sanborn, The RH Factor, John Scofield, Jesse Harris and Lizz Wright. Also to be added tomorrow are additional albums from the Eagles, Michelle Branchis album "The Spirit Room," and new Featured Artist pages for Coldplay, including an exclusive track and music video, and Alanis Morissette, with her catalog of music.
You can find more information about the iTunes Music Store at AppleMusic.com.