Apple has sold five billion songs from its iTunes Store, five years after launch.
It sounds like a big number and it is. But it doesn’t cheer the record industry much, as plummeting CD sales have reduced overall music revenues by around $20 billion in the same period. The major record labels have also never been entirely comfortable with Apple’s approach to pricing and DRM. But then the record biz had its chance to build download stores before iTunes came along and messed it up royally.The growth download business has flattened now. Apple’s fourth billion was achieved in January, its third billion in late July last year.
The iTunes store still dominates the digital music sphere although Amazon, Wal-Mart and others are making some progress with their DRM-free MP3 stores.
Then there’s mobile. Still embryonic, if we’re honest, and dominated by dual download services and sideloading.
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