View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/05/12/28/itunes.dominates
Wednesday, Dec 28, 2005 10:15am

Music traffic soars, iTunes...

Apple's iTunes Music Store and other music sites saw a sharp rise in traffic on Christmas Day as hundreds of thousands of people began loading songs on to the iPods they received as presents and redeeming iTunes gift certificates, according to the Financial Times. The report also found that Apple's iTunes Music Store increased its dominance over last year, receiving twice as much traffic as its next closest rival, Sony Connect. Last year, iTunes was only 10 percent ahead of its then closest competitor, Napster, according to the report. Citing figures from an online intelligence company, visits to music download sites saw a 50 percent increase between December 24 and 25. The firm also found that visits to download sites were 15 percent higher than last Christmas.

"Even before the Christmas increase, the BPI, the UK record companies' trade association, said download sales had topped 23m this year, five times the 4.7m sold in 2004. weekly downloads already exceed 650,000 and may pass the 1m mark for the first time this holiday season." Last month, we noted that Apple iTunes Music Store is growing as the most popular destination to purchase music, owning a larger share of the UK digital music download market than the rest of its competitors combined. Based on numbers from September, the data showed that iTunes' marketshare in the UK is 54 percent, while the next closest competitor, Napster, has only 10 percent of the market. Earlier this month, PayPal began a limited-time promotion, offering up to 25 free songs with the purchase of an iTunes Gift Certificate using PayPal funds.