Apple's iTunes rules digital music market with 63% share

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Apple's iTunes Store remains the driving force behind digital music, with 63 percent of digital downloads running through Apple, according to new figures out from the NPD Group.

iTunes 11


NPD's "Annual Music Study 2012" looked at data from more than 12,000 consumer surveys in order to gauge consumer opinions and habits in music buying. The study found that Apple's iTunes held 63 percent of the market for paid music downloads in the fourth quarter of 2012, followed by AmazonMP3 at 22 percent. Eighty percent of digital music buyers downloaded their music through Apple's iTunes last quarter, the study said.

NPD found that 44 million Americans bought at least one song track or album download last year. Per-buyer spending on music downloads was up six percent year-over-year, thanks to teens buying more tracks.

Nearly 40 percent of U.S. consumers still believe it's important to own their music, NPD's report said, with 30 percent believing that listening to whole albums is important. The belief in the importance of owning music is actually somewhat stronger among consumers that listen to Pandora and other free streaming services. Those listeners, NPD found, were more likely to buy downloads of things they'd heard on a radio or on-demand service.

What began as a simple, legal music repository for owners of Apple's iPod 10 years ago has grown into a powerful force in the music industry. In 2012, iTunes and other download providers boosted music industry revenue for the first time since the Napster era. Worldwide, digital music revenues are at $5.6 billion, and Apple's iTunes accounts for a large portion of that. The service recently sold its 25 billionth song, with 15 billion of those sales coming in the last three years.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 25
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    I think, that was my fault.

    I've spent a shitload through iTunes recently...
  • Reply 2 of 25
    cash907cash907 Posts: 893member
    So apple went from 80% to 63%? Did I read that right?
  • Reply 3 of 25
    jonyojonyo Posts: 117member
    cash907 wrote: »
    So apple went from 80% to 63%? Did I read that right?

    No, the 63% is apple's piece of total # of paid song downloads, while 80% is apple's piece of the total downloading userbase. So, 63% is a number-of-songs thing, and 80% is a number-of-people thing.
  • Reply 4 of 25
    19831983 Posts: 1,225member
    Nice to read, but being an audiophile I really want Apple to start selling/streaming HD 24 bit/192 kHz tracks and albums sooner rather than later. Together with Ultra HD video streaming/downloading they'd have the market for high quality media (to match their quality hardware) covered!
  • Reply 5 of 25
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member
    Am I the only one who's impressed by Amazons growth?
  • Reply 6 of 25
    cash907cash907 Posts: 893member
    jonyo wrote: »
    No, the 63% is apple's piece of total # of paid song downloads, while 80% is apple's piece of the total downloading userbase. So, 63% is a number-of-songs thing, and 80% is a number-of-people thing.
    Ah ok thanks.
  • Reply 7 of 25
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by saarek View Post



    Am I the only one who's impressed by Amazons growth?


     


    Yup!


     


    I still wish Apple would give the option to download an MP3 file. Any song I buy gets converted to that anyways so they aren't really forcing their format on me. Sometimes I'd buy from Amazon just so I could get the mp3 format because I'm too lazy to convert it. 

  • Reply 8 of 25

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 1983 View Post



    Nice to read, but being an audiophile I really want Apple to start selling/streaming HD 24 bit/192 kHz tracks and albums sooner rather than later. Together with Ultra HD video streaming/downloading they'd have the market for high quality media (to match their quality hardware) covered!


    I totally agree. I'm salivating at the thought of 24 bit/192 kHz music. Long over due. image

  • Reply 9 of 25
    chandra69chandra69 Posts: 638member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by saarek View Post



    Am I the only one who's impressed by Amazons growth?


    Yes

  • Reply 10 of 25

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Chandra69 View Post


    Yes



    Now that's funny! :)

  • Reply 11 of 25


    Just like Stevo said, Sometimes "easy," trumps "free!"

  • Reply 12 of 25


    And people were wondering why Apple is making the "outrageous" demands from record labels as far as pricing for the rumored "iRadio".


     


    When you're responsible for the majority of the revenue then you're entitled to "discounts" that others might not get. This is the way it's always been in business - the more you buy the better the price.

  • Reply 13 of 25
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    Would be great if we could get an accurate, unbiased 3rd party study that really reflected markets. NPD, IDC, and Gartner all skew numbers according to their biggest "clients".

    I forgot which (probably IDC), but one of them for years touted Microsoft's numbers and it turned out Microsoft was their largest client. Usually you can go back a few years and see predictions of marketshare numbers... The company with the largest share is usually a big spender.

    Just like with Greenpeace, Apple doesn't pander to these groups, so their rankings are always under-estimated and under-rated.
  • Reply 14 of 25

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by saarek View Post



    Am I the only one who's impressed by Amazons growth?


    Conveniently, the article fails to indicate that Amazon's growth went UP, while Apple's went DOWN.  Typical of AI.

  • Reply 15 of 25
    Their app revenue beats everyone's. their iTube sales beats everyone's. they command the highest profits off the high end smartphones, their iPad sales are consuming everyone's pc sales & yet, this stock dropped 265 points. The markets just don't make sense. Amazon gives away it pads & doesn't make a profit. Goog gives away its phone platform and has been out performing appl. Go figure!
  • Reply 16 of 25
    v5vv5v Posts: 1,357member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 1983 View Post



    Nice to read, but being an audiophile I really want Apple to start selling/streaming HD 24 bit/192 kHz tracks and albums sooner rather than later. Together with Ultra HD video streaming/downloading they'd have the market for high quality media (to match their quality hardware) covered!


     


     


    I would strongly urge you, and any other audiophiles you know, to sit in on a recording session sometime. Unless you're listening to Telarc or Deutsche Grammaphon, I think you may find that you are obsessing over minutia the artist and engineer did not.


     


    The issue of data compression is a separate discussion, but I am curious what you expect to gain from a 192KHz recording that you don't get at 44.1?

  • Reply 17 of 25
    v5vv5v Posts: 1,357member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by macxpress View Post


     


    I still wish Apple would give the option to download an MP3 file. Any song I buy gets converted to that anyways so they aren't really forcing their format on me. Sometimes I'd buy from Amazon just so I could get the mp3 format because I'm too lazy to convert it. 



     


    What's the advantage of mp3 in your application?


     


    I know there are all kinds of factors in addition to ultimate fidelity affecting most people's music storage preferences, but you might be interested to know that I accidentally disproved my own erroneous claims about mp3 vs. AAC sound quality in a comparison test.


     


    At the time, Apple was selling tracks encoded at 128K. I set up a double-blind comparison to demonstrate how much better an mp3 encoded at 256K would sound. To my amazement, I was wrong. The frequency spectrum of the 128K AAC was actually better than the mp3 at 256K (less deviation from the original wav file), and every single one of the five listeners found the 128K AAC subjectively better.


     


    Now that iTunes offers AAC at 256K, I've surrendered my mp3 bias and adopted AAC for my compressed media. Unlike 10 years ago, I no longer encounter situations in which it's not a supported format.

  • Reply 18 of 25
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    1983 wrote: »
    Nice to read, but being an audiophile...
    I can't stand audiophiles.

    You know what happens to you guys in jail, don't you?
  • Reply 19 of 25
    dwillydwilly Posts: 60member


    Who's making more money?

  • Reply 20 of 25
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by GTR View Post

    You know what happens to you guys in jail, don't you?


     


    We're forced to listen to symphonies in 64k using Creative Zen earbuds?

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