iTunes has become the biggest music retailer worldwide

During the Apple event which started yesterday, CEO Steve Jobs has announced some rather astonishing figures concerning the iTunes store. iTunes is now the number 1 music retailer in the world holding no less than 100,000,000 accounts. Yes, 100 million! And so far 8.5 billion songs have been downloaded from the iTunes store including millions of electro and industrial tunes as most labels from the dark scene have now found their way to this rather excellent download platform.

In conjunction with iTunes, Apple has also sold over 220 million iPods to date making it one of the most successful products in history. In the U.S., the iPod has a monopoly with an astonishing market share of 73.8%. The next biggest MP3 player is 'other' with 18% while Microsoft is pulling in the rear with just about 1%. The company also sold over 20 million iPod touches. The most popular iPod is the iPod nano which sold over 100 million. The new iPod nano generation will have a built-in video camera.

For the iTunes users, iTunes 9 has launched yesterday with a revamped look and feel. Note that Apple also launched a new digital music product, the iTunes LPs. These LPs will include all sorts of bonus features like custom album art and music videos, and will be accessed in a special full-screen menu. It's a product that for now is only available from major record labels and it's far from sure that indies will follow as they are not really demanding higher download prices like the majors do. To be continued.

Posted by B. Van Isacker