Frank Sinatra’s version of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” was the 25 millionth song to be purchased on Apple’s iTunes music store, the company has revealed.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that music lovers are downloading more than 1.5m songs per week from the online service. While Apple’s iTunes music store is only available in North America at present, a spokesman for Apple in Ireland recently said that the company is committed to launching iTunes in Europe next year, citing copyright and legal issues rather than technology issues as the reason behind the delay.
Launched only last April, the iTunes Music Store offers Windows and Apple Mac users the same music catalogue of more than 400,000 songs at 99 cents-per-song pricing for music from all five major music companies and more than 200 independent music labels. The second generation of iTunes was unveiled in October, with new services such as online gift certificates and a patent-pending “allowance” feature that allows parents to deposit funds into their kids’ iTunes Music Store account.
“With over 25 million songs purchased and downloaded to date, the iTunes Music Store is hands-down the most successful online music store,” said Jobs. “Music fans are buying and downloading almost 1.5 million songs per week from the iTunes Music Store, which is a rate of 75 million songs per year.”
Apple claims to be the only company offering music fans what it calls “a complete solution” for buying, managing and listening to their digital music collections with the combination of the iTunes digital music jukebox software, the pioneering iTunes Music Store and the market-leading iPod digital music player.
By John Kennedy
