Apple’s worldwide digital music sales through iTunes have dropped up as much as 14% in 2014, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal citing sources close to the situation. That’s a big decrease, as the report points out, when compared to data available for digital sales last year:
The dive in download sales is stark compared with a much shallower dip last year. Global revenue from downloads fell 2.1% in 2013, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, but that decline was offset by increases in revenue from ad-supported and subscription streaming services, resulting in overall digital revenue growth in most markets last year… Factoring in CD sales, which have been plunging for well over a decade, overall music sales in most of the world held steady last year. Japan was an exception, with steep drops in physical and digital sales alike.
The drop in digital sales vs an increase for revenue streaming service is thought to be one of the big motivating factors behind Apple’s purchase of Beats. And on that note, the report adds that Apple is planning on “rebuilding Beats Music and plans to relaunch it next year as part of iTunes.”
A possible rebranding for Beats Music is something Apple hinted at earlier this year in response to rumors it might shut down the newly acquired streaming service. The rebranded Beats Music service, possibly under Apple’s iTunes branding as reported by The Wall Street Journal today, was previously rumored to be planned for February.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Beats will inevitably need a free-tier iAd supported desktop/web browser option to compete with Spotify. Way to hard to lure the highschool age crowd away from Spotify into Beats otherwise.
It better be as functional as Pandora or I won’t consider paying for it. I’d really like to test out Beats Music to see how the seeding algorithms work to listen to the artists I want to hear. I can’t ever see Apple creating an alternative to Spotify. I can’t even imagine how Spotify can exist with all those free albums to listen to. Apple was so stingy with their 30-second song bites so I know they’ll never be like Spotify.
In any traditional record store years ago you could completely listen to your music before you decided to buy it. Apple can do whatever it wants and I’ve nothing to complain about when there are so many other, more generous services to use. It’s just that Apple has a ton of money and the largest music catalogs on the planet and yet they’re so stingy. They need to generously use that freaking content to sell more hardware. I know they have to follow the rules of the music industry so maybe Apple isn’t completely to blame if it wants to make more agreements. I’m sure everything Apple does has a reason behind it so I’m not going to second-guess them on anything just because I don’t see the reason.
So itunes is coming to android and windows phone like beats music already is?
What did they do to LaLa?????