[Tech] Apple: 50 milioni di brani venduti su iTunes Music Store

Lunedì scorso iTunes ha superato il traguardo dei 50 milioni di brani venduti (al prezzo di 99 centesimi di dollaro cadauno).



Il più vicino competitore, Napster (nella rinnovata versione commerciale) ha venduto "solo" 5 milioni di brani.



Attualmente Apple con iTunes controlla il 70% del mercato della musica online, con un ritmo dei downloads pari a circa 2,5 milioni a settimana - 130 milioni all'anno.



Nonostante i numeri, apparentemente elevati (le case discografiche però vendono 750 milioni di CD all'anno, ciascuno contenente almeno una decina di brani) il futuro dell'accoppiata iTunes-IPod potrebbe non essere così roseo:

Even considering its early success in convincing people that an online download store can work, Apple faces challenges.



That's because for Apple, digital music downloads aren't an end in themselves -- they are a means to selling more iPods. Schoeben characterized the company's approach as ``iTunes plus iPod. "The idea, Schoeben said, is that once people download songs from iTunes, they'll crave an iPod to carry the tunes around, because ``you can burn CDs, but who wants to use a CD player these days?"



In the coming months, Apple will begin to unfurl its strategy of making a little less profit on the average iPod, but selling a lot more of them. A Hewlett-Packard branded version of the iPod is due in a few weeks, and HP will pocket some of the profit from that version. The new iPod mini will bring Apple less profit per sale than previous iPod models, because its parts make up a larger portion of its $249 price tag.



Success for Apple will mean selling so many of the music players that the slimmer profits don't matter, and paying lower prices for the iPod's building blocks. Apple will begin to show success or failure in the spring.

Fonte: SiliconValley.com.