This morning's "iTunes Music Store Anniversary Conference Call" with Apple CEO Steve Jobs provided a routine recap of the company's music store operations, objectives, and expectations for the following year. A list of the most interesting segments from the meeting include:
- Since the introduction of iTunes 4.5 this morning, 1,000 users have already published their music via iMix and there have been 5,000 votes on those mixes.
- Apple expects the iTunes Music Store to arrive in Europe 'later this year.'
- Apple believes that radio playlists will further enable users to locate and purchase songs they've heard on the radio.
- According to Jobs, the record labels never asked Apple to allow iTunes downloads to play on any other device.
- Contrary to circulating media reports, Jobs believes album prices on the iTMS are, on average, going downward rather than upward. Jobs further stated that Apple will continue to push the $0.99 song model
- Apple expects HP to ship 8 million copies of iTunes this year.
- Apple is always talking to other companies about partnerships — "we're all ears all the time."
- Jobs said he expects the iTMS to have over 1 million songs by the end of the year.
- Jobs downplayed subscription-based online music services, saying users want to 'own,' not 'rent,' their songs.
- Although Apple fell short of its original 1st year goal, the company is now selling tunes at a rate of more than 140 million a year or 2.7 million per week. Jobs noted that this number is well beyond what anyone would have predicted.
- Apple plans to stay focused on the fact that people are buying iPods for music.