Way back in November, all of two months ago (I know, eons in internet time!) Apple promised a day that would change everything – or something like that. We all knew what was coming, and on November 16th The Beatles catalog arrived on iTunes.
There were many who believed that it was too little, too late. The Beatles box set was already out for over a year on Amazon, and millions of copies of their 13 records had sold. Others thought their was a ‘pent up demand’ that would spring forth on release. Within a week reports let us know that the group had sold two million songs and 450,000 albums – vindicating the pent-up demand theory.
But no one expected it to sustain, so the question was – how long would it last? Now we are two months into the ‘Beatles on iTunes’ era, and there are some new numbers coming out: 5 million songs and 1 million albums.
As noted:
Apple has informed The Loop that the iTunes Store recently exceeded 5 millions Beatles songs and 1 million Beatles albums sold worldwide. “Abbey Road” is the current best-selling Beatles album in the U.S., while “Here Comes the Sun” is the currently best-selling Beatles song.
It is easy to look at these numbers with cynicism, saying that while initial sales were good, they only sold 550,000 albums and 3 million songs in the last 7 weeks.
Huh?
Let’s just think – the top-selling single sold just over 4 million copies, and needed 8 months to do it! At a time when music has seen its business cut in half between 1999 and 2009, these sorts of numbers are stunning! For a group that has been dead longer than most consumers have been alive … not a bad couple of months!
Source: Loop Insight
