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Egg on Forrester's Face, iTunes Sales Still Weak

Is iTunes in trouble or not? Earlier this week, Forrester Research estimated that song sales for Apple's Music Store had fallen 65% in the first half of the year. Apple later denied those reports, citing strong global sales growth, though it didn't offer comparison data.

Later, the Forrester analyst who wrote the report reneged, saying the sample size was too small. Yesterday, both comScore Media Metrix and Nielsen NetRatings released data. The former saying sales were up 84% and the later claiming an 85% rise in visitors last month, versus a year ago.

So it looks like egg all over Forrester's face. However, comScore also said that the average amount per iPod sold was up just 10%--that means 22 songs per iPod instead of 20, or about two albums. Clearly, iTunes sales aren't crushing the music market.

Apple may be touting its 6% share of the music market, but that's not all that great, especially since iPod has revolutionized the way people consume music. As Bill Gates said yesterday, people should just buy CDs and then rip 'em--and they are, though a much greater number still steals music from file-sharing sites. Nobody likes digital rights management. It's completely unnecessary, and that's reflected in iTunes' relatively tepid sales.

Read the whole story at Business 2.0 Blog »

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