iTunes Now #1 Music Retailer (Passed Wal-Mart)
04-03-08, 11:57 PM
#1
DVD Talk Legend
Thread Starter
iTunes Now #1 Music Retailer (Passed Wal-Mart)
So have CD sales slumped that far, or has downloads of individual songs increased that much?
With regard to Wal-Mart's pricing schedule ($10 new releases, $12 newer releases, $7 to $9 catalog titles) - this may be the incentive to get it passed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23942136/
With regard to Wal-Mart's pricing schedule ($10 new releases, $12 newer releases, $7 to $9 catalog titles) - this may be the incentive to get it passed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23942136/
Apple passes Wal-Mart in music sales
Company overtakes brick-and mortar rival to become largest in U.S.
LOS ANGELES - Apple Inc.’s iTunes online music store vaulted past Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in February to become the top overall music retailer in the U.S., a market research firm said Thursday.
Best Buy Co. was ranked behind Wal-Mart and iTunes, with Amazon.com and Target tied for the fourth spot in January and February, according to consumer surveys conducted by The NPD Group.
The firm tabulated units sold, counting every 12 digital downloads as one CD. It did not count sales revenue, nor mobile music sales.
Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple touted the latest signs of its music retail dominance, noting it has more than 50 million customers. A survey NPD released in February covering annual sales proclaimed iTunes leapfrogged to the No. 2 ranking in 2007.
Itunes has sold more than 4 billion tracks since its launch in 2003, thanks in part to the popularity of its iPod portable music players.
The music store sold around 25 million tracks in 2003. Three years later, it surpassed the 1 billion mark, and by July, it had sold more than 3 billion tracks.
Apple’s rise in the NPD survey also reflects a trend this decade of declining CD sales and rising digital music sales, which favors digital music retailers.
Amazon.com began selling music downloads last year.
Company overtakes brick-and mortar rival to become largest in U.S.
LOS ANGELES - Apple Inc.’s iTunes online music store vaulted past Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in February to become the top overall music retailer in the U.S., a market research firm said Thursday.
Best Buy Co. was ranked behind Wal-Mart and iTunes, with Amazon.com and Target tied for the fourth spot in January and February, according to consumer surveys conducted by The NPD Group.
The firm tabulated units sold, counting every 12 digital downloads as one CD. It did not count sales revenue, nor mobile music sales.
Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple touted the latest signs of its music retail dominance, noting it has more than 50 million customers. A survey NPD released in February covering annual sales proclaimed iTunes leapfrogged to the No. 2 ranking in 2007.
Itunes has sold more than 4 billion tracks since its launch in 2003, thanks in part to the popularity of its iPod portable music players.
The music store sold around 25 million tracks in 2003. Three years later, it surpassed the 1 billion mark, and by July, it had sold more than 3 billion tracks.
Apple’s rise in the NPD survey also reflects a trend this decade of declining CD sales and rising digital music sales, which favors digital music retailers.
Amazon.com began selling music downloads last year.
04-04-08, 12:33 AM
#2
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Current music buying public likes a song and wants only that track. Downloading is perfect for them and it is so easy to be impulsive. In that vein, why buy the whole album any more? Even music clubs often will often only stock the greatest hits CDs and not carry the non-GH CDs.
I still prefer CDs and will rip a track from my CDs where I enjoy a few songs.
I still prefer CDs and will rip a track from my CDs where I enjoy a few songs.
04-04-08, 03:43 AM
#3
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I think a lot of it can be chocked up to MTV and VH1 abandoning music. In the 80's and 90's, people saw videos nonstop and would decide "I really want to get that Whitney Houston album". Nowadays songs are popular, not the artists. Without the video exposure and it going back to radio (which really sucks since radio stations play the same ten songs with very little variety), consumers are just going for songs, and there's very few artists and even fewer albums out there that they feel like plunking the money down for the whole thing.
04-04-08, 09:00 AM
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Several blames
As a former owner of a "record" store, I first had to contend with competition from music clubs. I built up a good business by daily ordering and customer service.
The major music labels decided to do away with the long box (cardboard) sleeves and package discs in the plastic jewel boxes. Their idea was to help the environment (save trees) and be able to reduce the cost of CDs. What happened? Prices increased.
They found that many consumers really wanted only one or two songs, so they started releasing "singles" (like we older folks use to buy 45rpm vinyls) and then whole album sales decreased. Yes, you guessed it....they discontinued them thinking "ha...we'll force the public to once again buy the whole thing!"
Then came technology. Where one parent would maybe come in and buy a $50 gift certificate for a kid's present, the kids found they could either download or "burn" from a friend's copy. Many enterprising youngsters found they could make money by making copies and selling them to friends at school. Or find inferior, cheap counterfeit copies at flea markets or corner neighborhood streets.
On Tuesday release dates, I'd find Walmart pricing lower than what I had to pay wholesale for plus explain to customers why their "exclusive" CDs had more songs than ours did.
To help keep my store open I had to rely on also selling cell phones, audio equipment and gifts, and trying to cut store expenses. (It didn't help either when a new landlord decided on a 37% rent increase!)
I finally decided the heck with it. I had a going-out-of-business sale after 15 years and shut the door. Other "mom and pop" type stores have followed suit.
I still see those counterfeiters at flea markets and since very little law enforcement is done, I hope these illegal vendors are suffering from reduced sales also. If as much attention was given to shutting down operations of this type as in the movie industry, our artists, songwriters and employees in the music industry, would be receiving the pay they deserve. But then.....how do they really profit from decreasing CD sales due to technology?
The major music labels decided to do away with the long box (cardboard) sleeves and package discs in the plastic jewel boxes. Their idea was to help the environment (save trees) and be able to reduce the cost of CDs. What happened? Prices increased.
They found that many consumers really wanted only one or two songs, so they started releasing "singles" (like we older folks use to buy 45rpm vinyls) and then whole album sales decreased. Yes, you guessed it....they discontinued them thinking "ha...we'll force the public to once again buy the whole thing!"
Then came technology. Where one parent would maybe come in and buy a $50 gift certificate for a kid's present, the kids found they could either download or "burn" from a friend's copy. Many enterprising youngsters found they could make money by making copies and selling them to friends at school. Or find inferior, cheap counterfeit copies at flea markets or corner neighborhood streets.
On Tuesday release dates, I'd find Walmart pricing lower than what I had to pay wholesale for plus explain to customers why their "exclusive" CDs had more songs than ours did.
To help keep my store open I had to rely on also selling cell phones, audio equipment and gifts, and trying to cut store expenses. (It didn't help either when a new landlord decided on a 37% rent increase!)
I finally decided the heck with it. I had a going-out-of-business sale after 15 years and shut the door. Other "mom and pop" type stores have followed suit.
I still see those counterfeiters at flea markets and since very little law enforcement is done, I hope these illegal vendors are suffering from reduced sales also. If as much attention was given to shutting down operations of this type as in the movie industry, our artists, songwriters and employees in the music industry, would be receiving the pay they deserve. But then.....how do they really profit from decreasing CD sales due to technology?
04-04-08, 09:13 AM
#5
DVD Talk Legend
Thread Starter
Wow, take a look at this graphic from a story in the Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/...4/37503634.png
It’s saying that in ’07, there were about $7.5 billion in CD sales and $1.8 billion in digital track downloads. It has projected that by late 2010, the dollar amounts will be the same at just over $4 billion each, and by 2012 CD sales will be $3.77 billion vs. $4.8 billion in downloads (source = Forrester, NDP Group).
That’s why Apple overtook Wal-Mart – because one is trending upward and the other is in a slide.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/...4/37503634.png
It’s saying that in ’07, there were about $7.5 billion in CD sales and $1.8 billion in digital track downloads. It has projected that by late 2010, the dollar amounts will be the same at just over $4 billion each, and by 2012 CD sales will be $3.77 billion vs. $4.8 billion in downloads (source = Forrester, NDP Group).
That’s why Apple overtook Wal-Mart – because one is trending upward and the other is in a slide.
04-04-08, 09:38 AM
#6
DVD Talk Hero
Originally Posted by Flicker
As a former owner of a "record" store, I first had to contend with competition from music clubs. I built up a good business by daily ordering and customer service.
The major music labels decided to do away with the long box (cardboard) sleeves and package discs in the plastic jewel boxes. Their idea was to help the environment (save trees) and be able to reduce the cost of CDs. What happened? Prices increased.
They found that many consumers really wanted only one or two songs, so they started releasing "singles" (like we older folks use to buy 45rpm vinyls) and then whole album sales decreased. Yes, you guessed it....they discontinued them thinking "ha...we'll force the public to once again buy the whole thing!"
Then came technology. Where one parent would maybe come in and buy a $50 gift certificate for a kid's present, the kids found they could either download or "burn" from a friend's copy. Many enterprising youngsters found they could make money by making copies and selling them to friends at school. Or find inferior, cheap counterfeit copies at flea markets or corner neighborhood streets.
On Tuesday release dates, I'd find Walmart pricing lower than what I had to pay wholesale for plus explain to customers why their "exclusive" CDs had more songs than ours did.
To help keep my store open I had to rely on also selling cell phones, audio equipment and gifts, and trying to cut store expenses. (It didn't help either when a new landlord decided on a 37% rent increase!)
I finally decided the heck with it. I had a going-out-of-business sale after 15 years and shut the door. Other "mom and pop" type stores have followed suit.
I still see those counterfeiters at flea markets and since very little law enforcement is done, I hope these illegal vendors are suffering from reduced sales also. If as much attention was given to shutting down operations of this type as in the movie industry, our artists, songwriters and employees in the music industry, would be receiving the pay they deserve. But then.....how do they really profit from decreasing CD sales due to technology?
The major music labels decided to do away with the long box (cardboard) sleeves and package discs in the plastic jewel boxes. Their idea was to help the environment (save trees) and be able to reduce the cost of CDs. What happened? Prices increased.
They found that many consumers really wanted only one or two songs, so they started releasing "singles" (like we older folks use to buy 45rpm vinyls) and then whole album sales decreased. Yes, you guessed it....they discontinued them thinking "ha...we'll force the public to once again buy the whole thing!"
Then came technology. Where one parent would maybe come in and buy a $50 gift certificate for a kid's present, the kids found they could either download or "burn" from a friend's copy. Many enterprising youngsters found they could make money by making copies and selling them to friends at school. Or find inferior, cheap counterfeit copies at flea markets or corner neighborhood streets.
On Tuesday release dates, I'd find Walmart pricing lower than what I had to pay wholesale for plus explain to customers why their "exclusive" CDs had more songs than ours did.
To help keep my store open I had to rely on also selling cell phones, audio equipment and gifts, and trying to cut store expenses. (It didn't help either when a new landlord decided on a 37% rent increase!)
I finally decided the heck with it. I had a going-out-of-business sale after 15 years and shut the door. Other "mom and pop" type stores have followed suit.
I still see those counterfeiters at flea markets and since very little law enforcement is done, I hope these illegal vendors are suffering from reduced sales also. If as much attention was given to shutting down operations of this type as in the movie industry, our artists, songwriters and employees in the music industry, would be receiving the pay they deserve. But then.....how do they really profit from decreasing CD sales due to technology?
04-04-08, 10:04 AM
#7
DVD Talk Godfather
Overall revenues (album + digital sales) are higher today than they were a few years ago. More is spent on single tracks today than on albums and singles ten years ago.
"The number of individual tracks sold in 2007 exceeds the total sales of albums and singles in 1997." - Geoff Mayfield, Billboard charts director
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/n...um-sales_N.htm
The music industry is OK.
"The number of individual tracks sold in 2007 exceeds the total sales of albums and singles in 1997." - Geoff Mayfield, Billboard charts director
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/n...um-sales_N.htm
The music industry is OK.
04-04-08, 03:02 PM
#8
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
"I Keep telling you Democracy just DOESNT work!"
I say, make all cds 5-7 bucks. Start putting out Actual Limited Editions for around 12-20 bucks that include more songs, special packaging and #ered release. LOW #s.
I always wondered why a big artest just didnt have xxxxx copies of his album made (if he/she/it were popular) make em' numbered. and Sell them himself on ebay or their own website.
Put out a press release about new album coming out, Rare #ered, only xK albums, then dont release it, and sell them himself . Autograph each copy, and bam you got yourself basically 100% of the profit, excluding manufacturing fees, and your getting a higher price, and your building hype.. I think what Radiohead did earlier this year late last is great and tells me where it should be going. Offer the album for whatever you want to pay, offer a Deluxe version for the true fans, and then actually release the album in stores a bit later.
I say, make all cds 5-7 bucks. Start putting out Actual Limited Editions for around 12-20 bucks that include more songs, special packaging and #ered release. LOW #s.
I always wondered why a big artest just didnt have xxxxx copies of his album made (if he/she/it were popular) make em' numbered. and Sell them himself on ebay or their own website.
Put out a press release about new album coming out, Rare #ered, only xK albums, then dont release it, and sell them himself . Autograph each copy, and bam you got yourself basically 100% of the profit, excluding manufacturing fees, and your getting a higher price, and your building hype.. I think what Radiohead did earlier this year late last is great and tells me where it should be going. Offer the album for whatever you want to pay, offer a Deluxe version for the true fans, and then actually release the album in stores a bit later.
04-05-08, 07:39 AM
#9
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
A dollar a track for (mostly) 128kbps, DRM-infected files encoded in a format adopted by only two companies from a source that has about half the selection of an average mall music store. Doesn't seem like a recipe for success. Which just goes to demonstrate why I'm not a millionaire yet...
Now, if iTunes moves forward with their subscription service, that's a different story...
Now, if iTunes moves forward with their subscription service, that's a different story...
