iTunes sales increasing dramatically on an annual basis

Posted by Dennis Sellers Apr 5, 2007 at 6:21am

In a SF Chronicle article, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in discussing the company’s DRM-free initiative with EMI said the iTunes Store has sold 2.5 million songs to date. Actually, Jobs mispoke Apple has sold over 2.5 billion songs so far, blowing away some reports late last year that iTunes sales are down.

Based on previous Apple announcements and other reports, this last 12 months/annual total of songs sold is running at over 1.5 billion. That has increased from 602 million estimate of the last 12 month period. The bigger story is the rate of songs sold is increasing dramatically on an annual basis.

From those numbers Macsimum and Tim McGuire, a long-time correspondent of Yours Truly, have extrapolated 12 months/annual sales of songs. This is done by counting the days between announcements of songs sold totals and adding them on to reach the historical April 28 start date of the store. What’s obvious is that iTunes is a phenomenal growth story for just four years in existence. Will the next 12 month period have songs exceed two billion? Three billion?

As the SF Chronicle article notes, iTunes has netted the record companies more than $1 billion in revenue, which comes at little cost because the labels don’t need to package or ship the CD. “It’s worked out well for music lovers, for music companies and for Apple,” Jobs told the newspaper.

iTunes Music Store—songs sold

Launch: April 28, 2003
25 million songs: Dec. 15, 2003
“Over” 70 million songs: April 28, 2004
100 million songs: July 12, 2004
150 million songs: Oct. 15, 2004
200 million songs: Dec. 16, 2004
250 million songs: Jan. 24, 2005 (50 million in 38 days)
300 million songs: March 2, 2005 (50 million in 36 days)
350 million songs: April 13, 2005 (50 million in 41 days)
400 million songs: May 9, 2005 (50 million in 30 days)
500 million songs: July 5, 2005 (100 million in 57 days)
“Over” 600 million songs: Oct. 25, 2005 (“over” 100 million in 112 days)
850 million songs: Jan. 10, 2006 (250 million in 76 days)
1 billion songs: Feb. 22, 2006 (150 million in 42 days)
1.5 billion songs: Oct. 26, 2006 (500 million in 246 days)
2 billion songs: Jan. 9, 2007 (500 million in 80 days)
2.5 billion songs: April 1, 2007 (500 million in 82 days)

Extrapolated Annual Sales
Year 1 = 70 million
Year 2 = 370 million (350 million + estimated 14 day rate for additional 19,444,444)
Year 3 = 602 million estimate
370 million (estimate at April 28, 2005)
1 billion at Feb. 22, 2006
65 days short of a year
Selling rate per day for period at last measurement—3,571,429
65×3571429 = 232,142,885 sold for last 65 days
Year 4 = approximately 1.5 billion (6,097,560 sold per day for last 82 days – calculated 2007.04.02)

Videos -> TV/feature length movies
Launch: Oc. 12, 2005
1 million videos: Oct. 31, 2005 (“in less than 20 days”)
8 million videos: Jan. 10, 2006 (7 million in 70 days)
12 million videos purchased and downloaded: Feb. 7, 2006
15 million videos purchased: Feb. 24, 2006
35 million videos purchased: June 29, 2006
(Change in PR wording)
1.3 million feature length movies: Jan. 9, 2007
50 million TV episodes: Jan. 9, 2007

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