Sam Oliver
Sales from Apple's iTunes Store have fallen significantly thus far in 2014, helping to push forward the company's alleged plans to revamp the recently acquired Beats Music and make it part of the iTunes brand.
Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that sales from Apple's iTunes Store have fallen between 13 and 14 percent so far this year. That's much worse than last year, when global revenue from music downloads fell 2.1 percent.
The report also reaffirmed an earlier rumor claiming that Apple may be looking to end the Beats Music brand, and instead repackage the service it acquired as part of a $3 billion acquisition of Beats earlier this year. It's been said that the branding change would more closely align the property with Apple's other first-party offerings, such as the iTunes Store and iTunes Radio.
According to the Journal, Beats Music will relaunch next year completely rebuilt, and integrated into iTunes.
The report comes on the heels of a fresh rumor this week that claimed Apple is looking to cut the price of its subscription music service to $5 per month. Currently, Beats Music costs $9.99 per month on a month-to-month basis, or $99.99 if users are willing to sign up for a full year.
The acquisition of Beats Music represented Apple's entrance into a key subscription market where iTunes Store downloads and iTunes Radio streaming service did not compete. The subscription Beats Music service allows on-demand streaming of tracks and albums, as opposed to the randomized nature of iTunes Radio.
Streaming has become increasingly important in the music industry as sales of digital albums have been declining. Many users who previously purchased music have been migrating to services like Spotify and Pandora.
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80 Comments
Since my family switched to Google Play Streaming, we haven't purchased any music off iTunes. That was almost a year ago. $7.99/mo and we all share the same subscription.
iTunes has become a bloated mess in every sense of the term. It has become the kind of unmitigated disaster that Microsoft was famous for. I simply avoid it whenever I can.
Way past time for Apple to thoroughly re-imagine and re-create what is still perhaps the most important, valuable piece of software in the iOS ecosystem.
Since my family switched to Google Play Streaming, we haven't purchased any music off iTunes. That was almost a year ago.
Exactly. Nothing comes close to Google Music All Access. Especially since the recent integration of Songza built into it. By far the best streaming music app I've ever used.
about 5 yrs ago, owning physical media for digital content (i.e. CDs) seemed antiquated. now owning digital content itself seems antiquated. just let me access anything at any time either via the cloud or local cache
I wonder if this is why the iTunes Radio rollout is stalled? It launched in the US (of course) and then later in Australia. You would expect it to have reached Canada and the UK by now, but no. One explanation is legal hurdles, but maybe another is that Apple themselves have deliberately stopped it because it will be replaced by iTunes Beats in the near future.