iTunes Store tops 5B songs sold, serving up 50,000 movies per day
Apple announced Thursday that customers on its iTunes Store have purchased and downloaded over five billion songs to date.
The digital download service is the number one music retailer in the US, according to the most recent data from NPD Group's MusicWatch survey, and features the largest music catalog with over eight million songs.
Apple also said that iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, or a yearly run rate of over 18 million, making iTunes the world's most popular online movie store as well.
In addition to its industry leading eight million songs, iTunes also sports a catalog of over 20,000 TV episodes and over 2,000 films, including over 350 in high definition video.
iTunes features movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.
Users can rent movies and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. iTunes Store customers can also purchase new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios on the same day as their DVD release.
The digital download service is the number one music retailer in the US, according to the most recent data from NPD Group's MusicWatch survey, and features the largest music catalog with over eight million songs.
Apple also said that iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, or a yearly run rate of over 18 million, making iTunes the world's most popular online movie store as well.
In addition to its industry leading eight million songs, iTunes also sports a catalog of over 20,000 TV episodes and over 2,000 films, including over 350 in high definition video.
iTunes features movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.
Users can rent movies and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. iTunes Store customers can also purchase new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios on the same day as their DVD release.
Comments
At the current rate of 50K movies per day they will sell 18.25M per year. At $4 per movie rental (which I assume is the most common) that is $73M per year in revenue.
Users can rent movies and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. iTunes Store customers can also purchase new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios on the same day as their DVD release.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Unless of course you are in Australia...
At least we have a Company store!
Not to diminish any of NBC's shows but none of them ever caught my fancy so I never viewed them or bought them while on iTunes and I DEFINITELY did not go looking for any of their shows elsewhere. I am curious to know, those that loved NBC's programs such as, The Office, Scrubs, 30 Rock or whatever, when the content dried up at iTunes did any of you venture to alternate sites to find the NBC content and if you did back then, are you still today?!
Just curious...
They will have to at least triple this if they want to keep such a business model going, or the studios will bail and the content will evaporate.
Hmm, in the article it says: "Apple also said that iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, or a yearly run rate of over 18 million, making iTunes the world's most popular online movie store as well."
If this is the most popular online store in the world already - where would the studios turn to?
Any word on NBC's outside attempts with NBC.com, Hulu, Amazon and Zune Marketplace or whatever other distribution devices NBC has chosen? I wonder if the execs at NBC are still trying to figure a way to come back to iTunes while saving face or if they feel they are justly compensated through the ad supported distribution means they currently support with their programming.
Not to diminish any of NBC's shows but none of them ever caught my fancy so I never viewed them or bought them while on iTunes and I DEFINITELY did not go looking for any of their shows elsewhere. I am curious to know, those that loved NBC's programs such as, The Office, Scrubs, 30 Rock or whatever, when the content dried up at iTunes did any of you venture to alternate sites to find the NBC content and if you did back then, are you still today?!
Just curious...
I liked all the shows you mentioned, but have never been to hulu or whatever they call it. I have a TiVo so what's the point? If I really need it on an iPod I can buy Toast with Tivo2Go. I think the only business model that really makes sense to me is if you can replace your cable bill entirely with purchases from iTunes. It would end up cheaper for most people, and without ads, but it's definitely a different way of doing business. And lack of NBC content definitely hurts Apple there.
So I think NBC and Apple are definitely both hurting each other in this. No one's winning. I think NBC needs to just bite the bullet and come back to iTunes without bizarre DRM requests.
If this is the most popular online store in the world already - where would the studios turn to?
I dont know that they would turn anywhere. They might just say its not worth the bother. Any given studio couldnt possibly be getting more than 2-3 million from this. That is really small change considering the costs of generating it (lawyers for every movie signed over, administration).
I think digital distribution is the way to go in general ( i havent bought a music cd in 5+ years but buy tons of tunes off itunes) but people are being really slow to adopt this model for video content. Watching video on portable media players is ok if your traveling or something, but not something most people would choose to do over conventional tv setups so i think that market is pretty limited by the small form factor of the device. If blu-ray systems didnt cost a ton and did more maybe the physical media model would see something of a revival, for now I think there is just gonna be a few years of stagnation as no one player can seem to get that critical mass.
They were about 1.5 months short of selling 5B is 5 years.
At the current rate of 50K movies per day they will sell 18.25M per year. At $4 per movie rental (which I assume is the most common) that is $73M per year in revenue.
Rentals AND purchases. The average could be higher, perhaps $6 to $8.
Whatever the market is doing today so far (I haven't checked my realtime account yet) Apple's stock should be rising from this news, which shows three very good things.
One is the expanded music library of over 8 million songs.
Two is the sale of over 5 billion songs, which shows, as I've been saying for years now, that most consumers couldn't care less about DRM and quality issues. This makes the DRM hating geeks come out of the woodwork, but it's true, most consumers don't give a sh*t about DRM.
And three is the really good news about movie purchases and rentals. Even though Apple has many fewer movies than their main competitors, their new pricing and renting schedules are proving to be palatable to consumers, as I also said it would, and leading to industry leading business. Variable pricing is not the bugaboo that some seem to think it is. Consumers agree that different things have different values, and they don't mind paying more for something they value more.
Guess it puts the Kibosh on any price reductions on movie's in the UK store
They are gonna have to move WAY more than 50,000 a day to make it worthwhile. That ends up being 40-80 million in revenue per year...split like 20 ways between hollywood, the costs of digitizing, the cost to provide the bandwidth, and apples cut, the tax man, etc. I imagine the lions share of the revenue has to go to hollywood (70%). I cant imagine at that pace that apple makes more than 5 million a year from the business, maybe 10m if you factor in apple tv/ ipod sales that are driven by this business. Not good. I was really hoping for better. They will have to at least triple this if they want to keep such a business model going, or the studios will bail and the content will evaporate.
It's more than $80 million a year at this pace, as purchases raise that average higher.
but, you could have said the same thing about iTunes music several years ago.
Your argument has no credence, because of two reasons.
The first is that Apple just instituted this a few months ago, so it's at it's infancy, and has a long growth curve in front of it as Apple gains many more films, Tv shows etc. Right now, they have but a fraction of what their competitors have, and yet, they beat the pants off them in sales and rentals. Doesn't that tell you anything?
Two is that Apple has NEVER regarded their downloads business to be much more than an adjunct to iPod and Mac sales. Now iPhone sales as well. If they make a 5% profit on this they will be very happy indeed. This is the main advantage Apple has over its competitors who are only selling the service. They have to make more profit on it than Apple to have a viable business.
Remember that the labels and studios have complained about that very thing. That Apple doesn't care about profits on its downloads because of its hardware business, which its downloads are just the feeder for.
I think that 50,000 downloads a day at this point is very good indeed. Your expectations are out of whack with reality at this time.
3 years to sell the 1st billion,
1 year to sell the 2nd billion,
6 months to sell the 3rd and 4th billion
4 months to sell the 5th billion.
I'd expect the movie rental trend to increase as well..
Your argument has no credence
pretty harsh imo
As for it just being a couple months old...kinda, but iTunes for TV has been around a lot longer and this is only a tweek on it. Are they even advertising it or the apple tv? I would be more optimistic if they started advertising, that would be a sign of commitment.
I am not taking the position that apple needs to make much of a direct profit from this, but the movie industry certainly does if they want to have the content.
Your expectations are out of whack with reality at this time.
Maybe these numbers are good considering the lack of advertising, but think how much problem they have had with the TV networks over even greater revenue. Am I "completely out of whack" for hoping that they could get to at least that level?
Two is that Apple has NEVER regarded their downloads business to be much more than an adjunct to iPod and Mac sales. Now iPhone sales as well. If they make a 5% profit on this they will be very happy indeed. This is the main advantage Apple has over its competitors who are only selling the service. They have to make more profit on it than Apple to have a viable business.
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True, Apple did say this.. But that was before they were selling 1 billion songs every four months.
If this pace continues or increases it becomes a minimum of 3 billion songs sold per year.. If Apple gets a 10% profit, that's $300 million per year in music sales alone, even a 5% profit is 150 million per year. Both figures are definitely something to regard.
pretty harsh imo
As for it just being a couple months old...kinda, but iTunes for TV has been around a lot longer and this is only a tweek on it. Are they even advertising it or the apple tv? I would be more optimistic if they started advertising, that would be a sign of commitment.
I am not taking the position that apple needs to make much of a direct profit from this, but the movie industry certainly does if they want to have the content.
Maybe these numbers are good considering the lack of advertising, but think how much problem they have had with the TV networks over even greater revenue. Am I "completely out of whack" for hoping that they could get to at least that level?
Yes, TV shows have been around while, but I think those are more targeted to mobile viewing, and being shorter, sitting at your computer watching an occassional show is not a big deal. The only time I've purchased a TV show was because my DVR didn't record an episode or for some of the NFL game summaries. There are very few TV shows that I couldn't just have my DVR record, so until they start offering shows I can't get on cable (such as overseas programming), or until it can completely replace my cable, I don't see much growth in TV shows.
The real growth potential is the movies, I think. Movies have been around a little while, but how do you get that on your TV. The first limiting factor is the need for a widescreen TV (yeah, I know that's not strictly true). The second was the cost of AppleTV (although I use my mini). The third was cost of content (iTunes movie purchases aren't exactly a bargin for what you get).
All of those have only just recently been addressed to some degree. This past holiday season was another big one for HDTVs, and after the holiday Apple lowered the price of AppleTV and added rentals. The true test will be this upcoming holiday season. An upgraded AppleTV, bigger movie selection, and a big marketing push could make AppleTV a big item for Christmas gift giving. The competition will be Blu-ray (from a gift-giving perspective, not from a technical features perspective). I suspect this Fall is the battle Apple will be gearing up for on the movie/AppleTV front.
Not to diminish any of NBC's shows but none of them ever caught my fancy so I never viewed them or bought them while on iTunes and I DEFINITELY did not go looking for any of their shows elsewhere. I am curious to know, those that loved NBC's programs such as, The Office, Scrubs, 30 Rock or whatever, when the content dried up at iTunes did any of you venture to alternate sites to find the NBC content and if you did back then, are you still today?!
Just curious...
I tried Hulu. Seems to work fine, but misses the major point for me: I buy/rent video content from iTunes only to watch via iPods or AppleTV. No interest in sitting at my computer longer than I have to, certainly not to watch TV. So NBC and I have parted ways. Too bad, too, as I'm addicted to The Office and can watch every episode over and over again (as long as it is commercial free and where I want it to be) after purchasing.
I haven't really bought any movies in awhile, mostly because I don't want to invest in old tech (dvd) anymore, but bluray is too expensive and the quality just isn't there w/ iTunes.
I only buy things on bluray that I really really want (Planet Earth, 300, and Bladerunner thus far), I will be buying Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo once those hit and Transformers as well.
It's really a shame with all the DRM surrounding iTunes and everything else. I didn't care before when all I had was an iPod, but now so many devices can play digital content I feel trapped with iTunes Store media...
I am not taking the position that apple needs to make much of a direct profit from this, but the movie industry certainly does if they want to have the content.
Why? What does the movie industry have to loose by providing the content? On the contrary, I think they would have a lot to loose by not providing the content.
I don't think that the movie industry is very excited about selling movies online (I think they were happy with theaters and DVDs) but the world doesn't stand still, as much as they would like it to. If a whole generation comes to expect to be able to move movies to all their devices (TVs, computers, iPods and such) and the only way they can do this is through illegal downloading or ripping then a whole generation will come to age expecting their movies to be free.
The movie industry, if they are thinking long term, MUST provide resonable cost options for downloading movies. It is the wave of the future (it may not be here yet, but we know the wave is coming) and they need people to get used to paying for their content.
We saw what happened to the music industry when a generation got to thinking music should be free. It has taken people a long time to get used to buying it again and b!tch as they might, the music industry has iTunes to thank for that. The movie industry must have learned a lesson there...
It's really a shame with all the DRM surrounding iTunes and everything else. I didn't care before when all I had was an iPod, but now so many devices can play digital content I feel trapped with iTunes Store media...
Firstly, All of your Apple devices will play iTunes media..
Secondly, your Blu-Ray discs have just as much DRM and are more limited than iTunes content as they won't play on anything other than your PS3 or another Blu-Ray player.
I do understand what you mean by the quality isn't there yet with iTunes HD, but it is still very good for a rental.