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Amazon MP3 has little or no effect on iTunes
As much as Amazon mp3 would like to be a thorn in the side of iTunes, the data indicates that the service has had little effect on iTunes' dominance in digital music sales.According to a new study by The NPD Group, only 10 percent of all purchasers at Amazon mp3 are converts from Apple's service, while the rest are switching from other services or new to the whole direct-download music scene.
While 10 percent may sound like a lot to us ordinary folks, it wasn't worth the eyebrow raise of a single analyst.
The bottom line is, if Amazon mp3 sees itself as the David to iTunes' Goliath, then their work is definitely cut out for them. Amazon currently sits in fourth place in US music sales, with iTunes and Wal-Mart fighting it out for the top spot, and Best Buy in third.
The troubling statistic for Amazon is that only a tenth of their music sales come from Amazon mp3. The rest come from those archaic compact discs; if you don't know what we're talking about, check out your parent's music collection-maybe they have some laying around.
The question is, my friends, what is keeping Amazon mp3 from biting into sales on iTunes? Is it the poor browsing experience? Is it because Amazon is seen as outside of the iTunes-iPod ecosystem? Are people willing to part with 10 cents more, and put up with DRM, for the sake of iTunes simplicity?
Comments
23
Subscribe to commentsChrisApr 17th 2008 8:19AM
So, based on this, I headed over to Amazon last night and did a little downloading. I'm impressed. It's easy, cheaper and DRM free. I've been a long time iTunes fan but I'll definitely think twice and head to Amazon to do some price comparisons from now on.
pkApr 19th 2008 3:37PM
I don't understand why you say that only 10% of their sales coming from downloads is "troubling". If anything, it means that they have a ton of growth opportunity ahead of them - downloads are already at 1/9th of their CD sales after only 7 months.
So who should be troubled? Not Amazon, not Apple, and the rest of us don't really have a horse in this race, do we? Or are we just offended to find that some people out there - a lot of them, apparently - still buy CDs?
ericMay 1st 2008 8:30PM
Amazon is very easy to use. Even with an iPod and iTunes. When you buy the music, it downloads right into my iTunes library, just like buying natively on iTunes. i think they just need to promote it more and get more exclusives away from the Apple.