Photograph: Apple
March 15, 2004: The iTunes Music Retailer hits a musical milestone, having offered an astonishing 50 million songs in lower than a 12 months. The achievement cements Apple’s place on the heart of the quickly altering music enterprise — at the very least for the second.
“Crossing 50 million songs is a major milestone for iTunes and the rising digital music period,” Steve Jobs says in an announcement. “With over 50 million songs already downloaded and a further 2.5 million songs being downloaded each week, it’s more and more troublesome to think about others ever catching up with iTunes.”
iTunes takes the music enterprise by storm
Whereas the 2004 numbers proved undoubtedly spectacular, right this moment Apple has offered billions of songs by means of iTunes. The corporate way back stopped saying the brand new landmark gross sales ranges it hit. In different phrases, Apple was simply getting began.
On the time, Jobs (for as soon as) downplayed the velocity at which iTunes was taking up the music business. Nevertheless, he was being completely correct about how far forward of the remainder of the competitors Apple was. Just some months later, Apple smashed through the 100-million-song barrier.
Inside 5 years of opening its digital doorways on April 28, 2003, Apple grew to become the most important music vendor (not simply on-line) in america. It grew to the biggest worldwide by February 2010.
Apple squanders its early lead?
Finally, it took the surge of streaming providers like Spotify for Apple to lose its place because the clear market chief. As of 2024, Spotify leads the pack when it comes to paid subscribers with greater than 236 million paid subscribers. Apple Music has an estimated 101 million users, with no free model out there. Music downloads, by comparability, are pretty much dead.
Nonetheless, iTunes gross sales milestones just like the one celebrated right this moment are at all times enjoyable to look again on. They remind us of how a lot additional Apple needed to climb on the time.
Do you bear in mind what your first iTunes tune obtain was? Go away your recollections and diverse recollections under.
