While Apple likes to announce about its iTunes sales when it increases or is approaching a certain figure, apart from announcing their billionth download in February, this seems to be one quiet year when it comes to sales announcements. According to the U.S. market research group Forrester in this Reuters article, their survey has found that between January 2006 and June 2006, iTunes transactions have declined 58 percent, along with a further 17% decline in the average number of songs per purchase.
According to the group, it is too soon yet to tell whether this decline was seasonal or if music buyers were approaching the point where they bought all the digital music they wanted. The group has carried out its survey by analyzing 2,791 US iTunes credit & debit card purchases between April 2004 and June 2006. Interestingly the survey has also found that the vast majority of purchases are for a few songs at a time (usually two), which means Apple has to deal with a lot of small transactions, not to mention the transaction costs and other costs associated with selling music online. Despite the large increase in online digital sales over the past couple of years, only 3% of online homes buy music from iTunes, with most of these still continuing to buy most of their music on CD. Back in 2005, Apple made up just 4% of U.S. music sales according to Forrester.
Interestingly, according to this Boston Herald article, Apple has countered talks of decline iTunes sales saying this is incorrect and that they currently account for 6% of all U.S. music sales. However, as Apple sold its 1/2 billionth tune back in July 17th 2005 and its billionth tune on February 24th earlier this year, if they continued at this same rate, they would have sold their 1.5 billionth tune around the end of September. However, assuming the mention of Apple passing its 1.5 billionth in the Boston Herald article is current, this would also suggest a slow down, since by this stage they would have passed their 1.6 billionth tune if the sales had just flattened out or would be approaching much closer to their 2 billionth sale (or passing this) if sales continued to increase since February.
