Filed under: Apple Corporate, iTS, iTunes
Incredible: Apple responsible for 25% of US music sales
The NPD Group has released amazing numbers this week: Apple is generating one quarter of all US music sales. Equally impressive, but less surprising, is that Apple is also responsible for 69% of all online music sales.Wal-Mart is #2 for US music sales at 14% (that's a combination of both their online and CD sales) and Best Buy is third. Speaking of CDs, the aging format is still the overall top seller in the US and Wal-Mart is the top CD distributor. However, NPD expects that Apple's sales will equal that of CDs by 2010.
I know it's impossible to say what I'm about to without sounding like a grumpy old man, but here it comes anyway. For me, the tremendous thing isn't that Apple has commandeered the market so handily, it is the rate at which the distribution model has evolved. I'm only 38 years old, but as a kid I had a box of records. By the time I was in junior high school I was buying cassettes and in college I bought CDs.
Today, I can't remember the exact last time I bought music in a format I could physically hold in my hands. I'm glad the big wigs in the music industry are starting to get it. Now if only the TV execs would follow suit.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Level 5 said 10:34AM on 8-19-2009
I'm not too surprised by this. Given that Apple sells the #1 PMP and the #1 smartphone in the US; and both of those have a music service essentially attached to them, that's certainly a recipe for large market share.
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Kevin Gass said 10:46AM on 8-19-2009
Yet they don't want to share that marketplace with the Pre.
eatmoreramen said 10:50AM on 8-19-2009
@Kevin
I wouldn't want to either if I was Apple.
That's like Microsoft arbitrarily deciding that they are going to make their games work on the PS3. If I was Sony, I'd be pissed because the money isn't made in the hardware, it's made in the software.
Level 5 said 11:07AM on 8-19-2009
Well.. as a person with an iPod, an HTC Touch Pro, a PS3, and several other media playing items, iTunes vs the Pre is a moot debate.
Fact: The iTunes store is DRM-Free, and the AAC files you can buy there or rip into iTunes work on anything that's able to play AAC files, including all the previously mentioned hardware, AND the Pre. Period.
The fact about Palm is they're spoofing iTunes into thinking the Pres are iPods. There are other way to sync to iTunes without doing this. RIM does it. I'm not sure what Palm would hope to gain by using the spoof method. The XML method other companies use isn't even a blip on Apple's radar. I'd be willing to bet Apple would welcome the Pre to iTunes with open arms if they played by Apple's rules; as it's revenue, irregardless that the Pre competes with the iPhone. Ok yeah, some people don't like that Apple keeps such a strangelhold on the software. I personally don't care. There's a million ways to sync stuff in iTunes, the Pre will never be completely shut out, especially when you can use iTunes files with the Pre as simply as right clicking a song and finding it in Explorer/Finder, and copying it over. Convenient no, works yes.
sodapop said 3:53PM on 8-19-2009
@ Kevin - Why should they share the marketplace? Do you want to share your paycheck with me?
Galley said 10:44AM on 8-19-2009
CDs will still continue to be sold as long as I'm alive. I'm buying more now, than I ever have in the past 24 years.
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bioadam said 12:28PM on 8-19-2009
As much as I love to own a physical copy of my copyright license, sometimes I'd rather by "Tubthumber" than the entire Chumbawumba album.
Tom said 11:32AM on 8-20-2009
Me too! I would rather have a CD for several reasons. One, if I find I don't like it, I can re-sell it. Two, I use it as a back up after I rip my CD's. Three the sound quality is usually better. Four, I like having something I can hold in my hands. I hope the CD never dies.
Think Adrian said 10:56AM on 8-19-2009
I just wish that all digital content you can buy would be of maximum quality. I don't want to pay for 192 kbit. I pay for CDs which I rip to any quality I see fit my current stereo best (I know, there are lower or better qualirt CD recordings too). When I buy or rent a movie online, I want HD.
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Jordan said 11:27AM on 8-19-2009
I agre, there's something to be said for having a physical copy that you can do what you want with. And as far as movies, I want full HD, not Apple's "HD".
sodapop said 4:57PM on 8-19-2009
CDs aren't maximum quality. It is a digital interpretation of an analog wave. Vinyl is better quality thank CDs.
THIS IS SPARTA said 7:20PM on 8-19-2009
@sodapop
Or not.. Digital music, no matter what audiophiles say is higher quality. People think vinyl has a "warmer" sound, but really you are hearing the imperfections in the vinyl giving a "richer" quality to it. Now that most music is recorded digitally your entire argument is flawed no matter if you think vinyl has better quality.
Stephen said 11:04AM on 8-19-2009
Wait, you didn't go through an 8-track phase?
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don said 11:39AM on 8-19-2009
"I know it's impossible to say what I'm about to without sounding like a grumpy old man, but here it comes anyway. For me, the tremendous thing isn't that Apple has commandeered the market so handily, it is the rate at which the distribution model has evolved."
Umm.. yeah.. it only took 50years for the industry to change. (and they're still kicking and screaming about it)
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ronl12 said 11:54AM on 8-19-2009
I agree with Galley. Unless it isn't available or is too high priced, my music comes to me on CD which I rip. Same with DVDs. The discs give me higher resolution and more importantly BACKUPS. The ripped versions are compressed and lower quality, but I can fit more of them on my PMP.
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Yoshi1080 said 2:33PM on 8-19-2009
“Unless it isn't available or is too high priced, my music comes to me on CD which I rip. Same with DVDs. The discs give me higher resolution and more importantly BACKUPS.”
Actually, the resolution of the music stays the same at 16bit/44.1khz. You can backup music files too.
Stuart said 11:58AM on 8-19-2009
Hmm ... what about disaster recovery? With purchases that are purely electronic ... what happens to your music if your hard drive fails and say you purchased 20GB or more of music perhaps from different sources and aren't disciplined enough to have back-ups. Or what happens if one or more of those sources has a disaster or worse disappears. Add to that the quality issues already identified .. no thanks I'll still be buying CDs. Give me physical media please!
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Level 5 said 12:14PM on 8-19-2009
I've thought about this alot, I wonder why we can't just get FLAC, ALAC, WAV or ISO? Yeah I mean alright it would cost the providers more for bandwidth, meh. It'd COMPLETELY wipe out the backup argument though because the users could burn their own lossless archive copy, which then in turn could be ripped in anything, for anything.
Personally, I buy most of my CD's used, and rip them. If they don't play/rip properly, a disc doctor is all it takes.
THIS IS SPARTA said 7:27PM on 8-19-2009
If you aren't disciplined enough to backup your music collection, then you are just waiting for something bad to happen. If you keep more than one copy of the files you should be safe. Hard disks are just as much physical media as CDs, or you could just get a SSD which won't fail like a hard drive. If you are worried about losing your collection then just burn CDs of your music. iTunes plus is sometimes better quality than a CD can provide for the most part.
mex said 1:34AM on 8-20-2009
I can't see your point, you can simply buy on iTunes and burn a CD, backup done, is the raverse process than buy original CD and rip it