Five billion iTunes served

Stephen Withers
Friday, 20 June 2008 05:29

Business IT - Technology

Movies are going well for Apple too. Over 50,000 are being rented or purchased every day, allowing Apple to claim it has the world's most popular online music store.

But in the great scheme of things, 50,000 movies a day doesn't seem particularly impressive. Part of the problem is the limited geographical availability - it was only earlier this month that Apple extended movie sales and rentals outside the US, initially to Canada and the UK.

Other issues include the speed provided by a potential customer's Internet connection, and the cost of iTunes movies compared with buying or renting a DVD.

The iTunes Music Store, as it was originally known, opened to US customers on April 28, 2003. It sold over one million songs in the first week. The original catalogue of 200,000 songs has now expanded to eight million.

Some observers describe the iTunes Store as a sideline that makes little money for Apple but that has propelled the iPod to market leadership. That overlooks the fact that the iPod was a top seller before the iTunes Store arrived.

In addition, research repeatedly shows that only a small proportion of the music on people's iPods comes from the iTunes Store - the rest is mainly copied from CDs or obtained from what are euphemistically called 'alternative sources' (peer to peer networks, copies made by friends, etc).

In fact, music piracy is iTunes biggest competitor, a problem that the music industry still hasn't resolved.