Yes, 10 'billion with a b,' as one panelist at Digital Music Forum put it. On Wednesday afternoon, Apple crossed a very impressive - and aptly timed - threshold of 10 billion song downloads on its iTunes Store. The accomplishment was expected to happen this week, and Apple is now getting ready to award a $10,000 iTunes gift certificate to one very lucky downloader.
Sounds like a huge number, though it now represents another confusing data point in a soup of conflicting information. On Wednesday, NPD Group analyst Russ Crupnick noted that the number of US-based paid downloaders is actually decreasing, and earlier this month, Warner Music Group chairman Edgar Bronfman pointed to a slowing sales trajectory. Also recently, Nielsen Soundscan pointed to rather modest year-over-year paid download growth in 2009, at least in the United States.
Yet, during 2009, Apple doubled its annual song download rate, suggesting a possible acceleration in overseas activity. Meanwhile, the upswing is benefiting a number of current artists. Earlier, Apple posted a list of the most-downloaded songs in iTunes history, a ranking that includes a large number of recently-released tracks. The iTunes Store first started selling songs in 2003.
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