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iTunes Now Number Two Music Retailer in the US

Feb. 26, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

Apple continues its relentless march to the top of an ever-decreasing heap:

Apple today announced that iTunes (www.itunes.com) is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group. Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers. iTunes has sold over four billion songs, with an incredible 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone, and offers the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs from all of the major and thousands of independent labels.

Big numbers. But it's odd to me that this is happening while iTunes isn't the best online music service (that accolade would go to Amazon MP3), though the iTunes Store is a tremendous place for podcasts, TV shows, and rentable movies. 

Discuss this Article 8

Lindy
on Feb 26, 2008
Simple logic would tell me that since most people have an iPods (clearly they own the market), and they use iTunes to mange their iPods, then if they were going to buy music online, it would be the simplest way to do so. Basically ease of use, what Apple does best. If Amazon created a plugin for iTunes I bet their sales would go up. Asking joe user to buy music from Amazon, then import it into iTunes is a step will stop a lot of users right there.
lotsamystuff
on Feb 26, 2008
Amazon's store, while excellent in many ways, still suffers from a crappy layout and poor usability, and as much as I know you complain about things not being "discoverable" on iTunes, Amazon is worse. Even more ridiculous than that is that the Amazon.com gift card I received for Christmas won't work in Amazon's MP3 store. And remember that iTunes works with PayPal, which is huge for a lot of people (not to mention those ubiquitous gift cards). Pricing is good, though, and selection is generally fine. But it has a long way to go to match iTunes. A long way. If Apple ever matches Amazon's pricing (and if the labels allow them to totally drop DRM), they'll be nigh untouchable (which, let's be honest, is why those two things will never be allowed to happen).
DRWAM
on Feb 26, 2008
Paul and others, I don't mean to flame-bait, but I dislike iTunes and anything similar. the Sansa gives me the freedom to moves files from any of my many computers, whether Mac or PC, and no need to create a playlist or import them. Although iTunes is great for converting th CD's. The Sansa is less expensive and sounds great. It's just a personal choice, but I would rather buy a CD so that I can put it on any player anytime and anywhere I want. I find iTunes to be unsuitable for my taste/needs, or at least the way I want to use my families music collection. Yes, we have an iPod shuffles and a Nano, but the Sansa 'e' series is much easier for my 7 yr old to use as well. I must load the music for them all of course. I don't not even want to activate iTunes on my Pro Tower. Sorry Steve-o!
Sir_Timbit
on Feb 26, 2008
Also, for me anyway, Amazon's MP3 service is irrelevant, as it's not available in Canada. Yet. From what I played with on the US site though, the interface wasn't as slick as iTunes. I think Apple has that nailed down right. Amazon's at a 1.0 layout. Give them time. Competition is a good thing. I'd love to see Apple extend their iTunes DRM-free option to provide actual Mp3 downloads, but I'm not holding my breath. DRWAM, I had the reverse experience. My first MP3 player was a Creative Labs Zen micro 1gb. It was fine, but as I used Itunes to purchase music, I was getting tired of archiving my purchases to regular audio CDs and then re-ripping them to play them back on the Zen. I also wasn't interested in any of the subscription-based services out there, so there ya go.
DRWAM
on Feb 27, 2008
Sor Timbit, I am not a power user of music and really only take care of the rest of the family. iTunes is great for organizing your music as well, but I can't keep up with 4 family members. I used Max.071 to rip the CD's, but it does not look as if it works for Leopard. Are there any other CD ripping apps out there for Leopard that anyone would recommend? My backup is to two internal extra hard drives, BTW.
cesjr
on Feb 27, 2008
"But it's odd to me that this is happening while iTunes isn't the best online music service (that accolade would go to Amazon MP3), though the iTunes Store is a tremendous place for podcasts, TV shows, and rentable movies." Paul, maybe ordinary folks disagree with you and think iTunes is better/more convenient. The biggest issue with Amazon is that you have to launch the broswer, it's separate from the music management app. Also, if you're already coming to iTunes for podcasts, TV shows and movies, you'll probably buy music there too.
Sir_timbit01
on Feb 27, 2008
DRWAM, don't know about other apps. I've always used iTunes to import. Click Edit-->Preferences-->Advanced tab. Click the Importing tab. Select Import Using MP3 encoder. There ya go.
DRWAM
on Feb 27, 2008
Thanks Sir Timbit. I have the prefs st to automatically rip and save to iTunes on my PC. I was just looking to avoid it on my Mac andMax .071 worked very well with Tiger.

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