Yesterday afternoon, the iTunes Music Store reached an incredible milestone when Apple announced that over 10 billion songs have now been downloaded from iTunes since it first opened up 6 years and 10 months ago.
The iTunes Store is now a bustling marketplace filled with songs, movies, television shows, and of course, thousands of apps. But when the iTunes Store first opened for business back in April 2003, it sold music exclusively. Indeed, it was the seamless integration between iTunes, the iTunes Store, and the iPod that helped propel iPod sales into the stratosphere.
Music on iTunes has long been the center of various controversies. Hot button Issues pertaining to DRM and whether or not the iTunes Music Store was helping or hurting the music industry were quite commonplace over the past few years. But now that DRM laden music is gone and buying music online has become as ingrained as buying CD’s once were, music on iTunes has seemingly been flying under the radar and living in the shadow of the iTunes App Store.
But that’s not to say that music on iTunes has been declining, or even stagnating. On the contrary, music sales on iTunes have never been stronger and are actually accelerating, a fact no doubt helped by the increasing number of people who own iPhones and iPods.
Yesterday afternoon, the iTunes Music Store reached an incredible milestone when Apple announced that over 10 billion songs have now been downloaded from iTunes since it first opened up 6 years and 10 months ago.
To illustrate just how fast music sales on iTunes are growing, consider that it took Apple over 5 years to sell its first 5 billion songs (reached in June 2008), and just over a year and a half to sell its next 5 billion. For as much press as the iPhone and the iTunes App Store seem to get, music on iTunes is showing exploding growth, yet continues to go unnoticed.
In a press release pubilshed today, Apple VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue said of Apple’s impressive 10 billion song downloads, “We’re grateful to all of our customers for helping us reach this amazing milestone. We’re proud that iTunes has become the number one music retailer in the world, and selling 10 billion songs is truly staggering.”
Now as for the 10 billionth song, it was downloaded by Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia who will receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card. And what song did he download you ask? “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash.
