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12 Apr 2007
New figures released by Apple suggest that demand for its iTunes movie download offerings is fading.
Initial demand for downloaded movies from iTunes was strong, with Apple saying 1.3 million films were downloaded by 2 February of this year. But new figures show that, almost three months afterwards, only around 700,000 additional films have been sold.
Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes, said yesterday: "More than two million movies have now been downloaded from the iTunes Store.”
The fall may be down to the enduring popularity of illegal downloading, despite actions by the RIAA and MPAA to scare off offenders.
“Downloading is huge,” said Neil Armstrong, products director of broadband supplier Plusnet.
“In the early hours of the morning nearly 100 per cent of network traffic is movie and music downloads.”
Apple recently signed up MGM to distribute some of its back catalogue via the iTunes store.
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slightly less fuzzy math
"it's showtime" event launches movies on september 12, 2006. 1.3 mln movies downloaded announced january 10, 2007. difference is 120 days. january 10, 2007 to april 11 (announced 2 million movies+) difference is 90 days. so there was an initial bump, but falloff is less dramatic than first thought.
Posted by: StrangeThingInTheLand 14 Apr 2007
I bought this T-shirt already
The same exact thing happened to the iTunes Music Store a few months after its launch; and there were alarmist stories like this one; just look at that puppy now. Been there. Done that. What this story really ignores is that 700,000 despite being lower than the 'crest of the wave' level, is still a whole whack of a lot for an online movie store, and a very healthy revenue stream to build upon.
Posted by: DBL 14 Apr 2007
movie download rate increases
If movie downloads started in Sept 2006, and they sold 1.3million by February that's a rate of 260 thousand a month. And now they've sold 700,000 in 2 more months. Haven't movie download rates increased? And if the editor is right and movies were available even before Sept 2006, then they sold 1.3million in 12 months. That's a previous rate of 110,000 a month before, and 350,000 a month now. Movie download rates have still accelerated.
Posted by: Lenny Tanner 14 Apr 2007
Fuzzy math, indeed
It seems quite obvious that, if one were to bother to do the math, movie sales on iTunes is constant. Apple opened its movie store only in September. There was only one Disney kids movie available in March 2006, possibly to gauge the market. Walmart, by comparison, only sold 3000 movies, of a library of 3000, in the 30 days from opening. iTunes is selling at a rate of more than 330k per month. Go figure!
Posted by: NerdBrain 14 Apr 2007
Not quite
I don't think that feature length films were added until November as the reader commented. The "editor" claims "movies", plural began in March, with a link to a vnunet article talking about one movie, the Disney television movie High School Musical. I think this story is misleading and incorrect.
Posted by: artMonster 14 Apr 2007
The reason why is....
...you can't burn a dvd. I can't buy movies and let them sit on my hard disk. They're too big. It's too much of pain to have to decide to move them to a backup drive, etc. I can burn a music CD for my own use - that's fair. I should be able to burn a DVD for my own use. Not being able to violates what has been considered "fair use" in the past. If I can't offload a movie to a DVD, for just my own use, Apple can forget my ever purchasing movies from them again.
Posted by: R 13 Apr 2007
Movie sales and announcement
A single movie was available on iTunes Music Store for six months (15 March to 12 September 2006) See http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/15/itunes-music-store-kinda-sorta-sells-full-length-movie/ The 12 Sept Apple PR announcement of iTunes 7 included the announcement of movies being available for sale from 4 houses and their pricing structure on iTunes Music Store for the first time. I believe it should be used as the start date for the counting of movies at the $9.99 price and above. I calculate 12,264 movie sales per day for the 106 days in the first time period and somewhere between 7,609 - 9,782 for the 92 days in the second period. One should remember factors as the number of video iPods in consumer hands, the frequency of movie demands with or without a video iPod, and the small (but growing) selection movies on iTunes. Also contrast the selection of TV episodes (many weekly) against the movie selection (growing but without consistent schedule). And there are choices, ie BBC video podcasts that are free and competing for viewers watching time as well. The pricing of $1.99 vs $9.99/$14.99 will be a factor as well as internet connection speeds. A different pace is called for movies and it is sorting itself out as is the number of production houses that are seeing that short films are taking advantage of the channel, ie. Sundance Festival Short Film offers. While it is early days with only two reporting periods and limited selection, let's keep a watch on movie sales after the shipping of the Apple TV.
Posted by: kikichong@mac.com 13 Apr 2007
more fuzzyness
"Note from the editor: Apple started selling its first movies in March 2006 (http://www.vnunet.com/2152063). It opened a movie section within iTunes in September." So, Apple sold one movie before September? When iTunes didn't have a movie section? And you want to include that in your volume numbers? How odd. Here is Apple's press release from September 12th when they started selling movies: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/sep/12itunes7.html Just admit that your numbers and dates are wrong. Sheesh, how hard is that?
Posted by: James Bailey 13 Apr 2007
Fuzzy Math...
Correct me if I am wrong. iTunes added movies in September last year. From Sept to February (5 months) they sold 1.3 million movies. Since then (2 months slightly less than half) they have sold 700000 (slightly more than half). So how are sales fading if they have sold slightly more than half in slightly less than half the time? At worst, sales rate have remained constant... --- Note from the editor: Apple started selling its first movies in March 2006 (http://www.vnunet.com/2152063). It opened a movie section within iTunes in September (http://www.vnunet.com/2164091)
Posted by: addicted 12 Apr 2007