According to this bulletin at Billboard, Apple's iTunes Music Store sold 275,000 songs in its first 18 hours of operation. That's over 250 songs per minute. I can imagine the server horsepower and bandwidth they've got to handle this kind of volume. Looks like Ming's wife, Joi and Denise joined me in contributing to the first successful day of the service. Others are upset that it requires a credit card with a US billing address.
Perhaps even more notable is that these are Mac users only and currently there is a limited selection of music – only 200,000 songs.
[…] the feat is especially remarkable when considering that the offering is available only to the limited universe of users of Apple computers. The launch thereby sets the stage for a race between a host of media and technology companies to create and effectively promote similar services for the much bigger Microsoft-equipped PC market […]
Apple knows that it must broaden the base of its customers in order to get a return on its iTunes Music Store investment. That must be why it is reportedly developing a Windows version of its iTunes Software.
