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Dec 18,2005 - Dec 25,2005 |
iTunes Music Store set pace for year
Trends included the introduction of camera-equipped cell phones and Tablet PCs
By Alessandro Cancian
Originally Published: 2004-01-11
As obvious as this may sound, the Best Product of 2003 must go to iTunes Music Store. Even though still unavailable in Canada, Apple's music outlet has achieved success to a degree possibly unforeseen by Steve Jobs himself. The iTunes Music Store was launched on April 28, offering over 200,000 songs for download at 99¢ each. Choosing to compete with pirates instead of trying to eradicate them, 275,000 songs sold in the first 18 hours and 1 million in the first week. Given the success of iTMS on the Mac, Apple pushed a Windows client out the door in October and sales have now exceeded 25 million downloads.
This service undoubtedly paved the way to many similar ones, such as Napster, Wall-Mart or BuyMusic.com. At the same time it convinced Dell, HP, Microsoft, and Sony that Apple's way was the one to follow.
Consumers benefited ethically, by having a viable alternative to stealing music; and aesthetically, by being able to search for, preview, and download music with unprecedented ease. Unlike most rival services, the iTunes Music Store gives customers the freedom to store music indefinitely, burn custom CDs, and transfer songs to the Apple iPod portable player.
Data seem to show that ITMS' main source of revenue is the iPod, as most of the profits come from that direction. The record companies still get crippling royalties, and maintenance of a distribution network also shaves off a lot. This, however, does not worry Apple: its portable MP3 player is its workhorse. Now available in 10, 20, and 40GB flavors, the iPod is the market share leader for all MP3 players, both flash-memory and hard-drive based. What is even more important is that the iPod is cool. It's a must-have item for many, and the price tag has not scared off enough buyers to put a dent in its market share.
Camera-equipped cell phones also deserve mention. They have been winning a nice share of the European market, also thanks to the introduction of the new wide-band cellular telephony. We shall probably see something like that in Canada in a few years, as usual.
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