Remember the old ‘Lucy’ show where she steps up to the grocery store checkout and wins a prize for being the millionth customer? Fast-forward a half-century and you have Apple preparing to commemorate its 10 billionth iTunes sale since its 2003 inauguration. Instead of free groceries for life, the Cupertino, Calif. company plans to mark the event with a $10,000 iTunes card for the lucky customer.
“iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and albums available for download, day or night. Seven years later, we’re about to celebrate our biggest milestone for music, yet — 10 billion songs download,” Apple announced at its “10 Billion Song Countdown” website.
It took four years — July 2007 — for iTunes to reach 3 billion songs sold, but just three more years to hit 10 billion songs sold, evidence of iTunes accelerating sales. By Friday morning, iTunes had sold more than 9.8 billion songs, according to the website’s counter.
However, it is unclear how long that pace will continue. Earlier this week a report surfaced that iTunes music sales had slowed in the wake of Apple moving away from the one-size-fits-all $0.99 structure to a sliding price ranging between $0.69 to $1.29.
The slowdown was evident in December numbers showing a 5 percent fall-off in sales of digital albums, down from 10 percent in September and 11 percent in June. Studios are also experiencing a slowdown in digital sales. Warner’s digital sales grew only 8 percent during the holiday period, down more than 10 percent compared to the double-digit 20 percent growth witnessed the previous year.
[Via AppleInsider]
Since iTunes began, Apple has expanded sales beyond music, reaching deals to offer TV episodes and movies. The introduction of the iPad could provide Apple with a new platform and avenue: e-books.
