Apple briefly held position as No. 1 US music retailer - report
Apple confirmed Thursday that the iTunes Store has surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number one music retailer in the US, based on the latest data from the NPD Group. [Updated with info from Apple press release.]
“We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes said in a statement. “We are thrilled, and would like to thank all of our customers for helping us reach this incredible milestone.”
NPD ranks music retailers based on data from its MusicWatch survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes Store became the largest music retailer in the US based on the amount of music sold during January and February 2008.
The announcement confirms an earlier report from ArsTechnica which revealed that the iTunes operator garnered a 19 percent share of all US-based retail music sales in January, good enough to push it past industry leader Wal-Mart, which captured a 15 percent share for the same period.
Apple's surge to the No. 1 spot comes just one month after the company reported passing Best Buy to become the No. 2 US music retailer.
What's of particular interest from Ars's earlier report is that it includes an NPD chart of the top 10 music retailers from January with their associated share of the market. NPD declined to release those specific share percentages back in February when Apple definitively claimed the No. 2 spot.
US music retailer rankings for one week in January | Source: ArsTechnica
Not only does the chart reveal Amazon to be a distant fourth in the rankings behind Apple, Wal-mart, and Best Buy with its 6 percent share, it more importantly shows the approximate level of separation between the top players.
“We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes said in a statement. “We are thrilled, and would like to thank all of our customers for helping us reach this incredible milestone.”
NPD ranks music retailers based on data from its MusicWatch survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes Store became the largest music retailer in the US based on the amount of music sold during January and February 2008.
The announcement confirms an earlier report from ArsTechnica which revealed that the iTunes operator garnered a 19 percent share of all US-based retail music sales in January, good enough to push it past industry leader Wal-Mart, which captured a 15 percent share for the same period.
Apple's surge to the No. 1 spot comes just one month after the company reported passing Best Buy to become the No. 2 US music retailer.
What's of particular interest from Ars's earlier report is that it includes an NPD chart of the top 10 music retailers from January with their associated share of the market. NPD declined to release those specific share percentages back in February when Apple definitively claimed the No. 2 spot.
US music retailer rankings for one week in January | Source: ArsTechnica
Not only does the chart reveal Amazon to be a distant fourth in the rankings behind Apple, Wal-mart, and Best Buy with its 6 percent share, it more importantly shows the approximate level of separation between the top players.
Comments
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/02/26itunes.html
M
well it's good to see someone doing their homework. this story is being misreported all over the web from macrumors to arstechnica itself. yes apple was the #1 for a few days, but it is NOT YET reigning #1 because Apple itself said in february that it was number two, not number 1
how do you know the February press release wasn't reporting on December data?
Where is Microsoft and all those Zune sales??!?!
It's probably in the -1 scale.
Hey, at what point is it possible to say Apple is an enormous profit-motivated corporation where the bottom line comes in front of quality, American Jobs at fair wages, conscientious politics and the environment without being called a troll? They're in Slave-mart territory now, do I need to wait until Hu Jintao gives Jobs a presidential medal?
If you REALLY want to avoid being called a troll, you could start by finding a thread where a rant like that isn't completely off-topic.
Hey, at what point is it possible to say Apple is an enormous profit-motivated corporation where the bottom line comes in front of quality, American Jobs at fair wages, conscientious politics and the environment without being called a troll? They're in Slave-mart territory now, do I need to wait until Hu Jintao gives Jobs a presidential medal?
You really don't understand business, do you? Why don't you quit whining and start a company. You'll learn very quickly that your views are distorted by a belief that the world owes you something.
If so, this would give iTunes a huge advantage as a 15 track album would then get counted as 1 1/2 albums whereas any brick and mortar sale of that album still counts as a mere 1.
And where do iTunes weekly 3 free tracks count in this process? Do they count as sales used for these rankings as this would again give iTunes a huge artificiail advantage?
Amazon will get up there soon
I was wondering about that. There's been a lot of talk that Amazon and their cheaper, rights free MP3's was really taking off. That Apple had better react to this new threat.
Perhaps this story isn't as current as the actual situation taking place...or the Amazon surge is not as great as it's been touted.
Hey, at what point is it possible to say Apple is an enormous profit-motivated corporation where the bottom line comes in front of quality, American Jobs at fair wages, conscientious politics and the environment without being called a troll? They're in Slave-mart territory now, do I need to wait until Hu Jintao gives Jobs a presidential medal?
No you did not.
1. Apple has no business being politically active in any way shape or form (fascist)
2. They are anyway (Al Gore) and since you sound like a liberal you should be very happy about it
3. They ARE environmentally sound, but not willing to suffer the extreme nutjob activists
4. "American Jobs at fair wages?" Get real. Go bitch to your california and National lawmakers who drove Apple to seek overseas manufacturing in the first place you socialist.
5. "...bottom line comes in front of quality..." This clearly proves you don't have the first clue what you're talking about. Quality indeed.
While the first paragraph says "in the US", the quote in paragraph two says "in the world".
well it's good to see someone doing their homework. this story is being misreported all over the web from macrumors to arstechnica itself. yes apple was the #1 for a few days, but it is NOT YET reigning #1 because Apple itself said in february that it was number two, not number 1
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/02/26itunes.html
M
Greetings:
Actually Apple has just issued a news release confirming the #1 spot as a solid reality:
iTunes Store now top US music retailer
Based on the latest data from the NPD Group?s Music Watch survey, the iTunes Store surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number one music retailer in the US, Apple today announced. ?We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world,? said Eddy Cue, Apple?s vice president of iTunes. ?We are thrilled, and would like to thank all of our customers for helping us reach this incredible milestone.? [Apr 03, 2008]
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008...tml?sr=hotnews
- Cintos
I'm really curious to see if we'll be able to get similar data in subsequent months, and if Amazon sales will ever be broken out into physical vs download. Hopefully whatever the numbers are, this continues to put pressure on everyone to go DRM-free.
Amazing how much the record labels have fcuk'd themselves in the past ten years!
Now Apple needs to just demand no-DRM and higher quality for all their tracks. Expect Wal-Mart to quickly cut shelf space for CDs and Target, Best Buy, and others to follow suite, since they use CDs as a loss-leader.
Amazing how much the record labels have fcuk'd themselves in the past ten years!
I think you will find Apple is demanding the end of DRM and have done for some time. It's up to the idiotic Labels to let Apple sell all their music as iTunes Plus instead of just EMI. It could be argued that EMI is allowed by the bigger labels to sell iTunes Plus because they are trying not to be sued for collusion.. but that would be just unfounded speculation..