Just hours prior to a press briefing on its mini-store strategy, Apple announced that music fans have gobbled up 150 million songs from its industry leading iTunes music store.Apple on Thursday announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 150 million songs from the iTunes Music Store. The 150 millionth song was âEx-Factorâ by Lauryn Hill and was purchased by Beth Santisteven from Ignacio, Colorado.
iTunes users are now downloading more than 4 million songs per week, a rate of over 200 million songs per year. Apple also announced the immediate availability of iTunes gift cards at all Best Buy stores.
âCrossing 150 million downloads marks another major milestone for the online music business,â said Eddy Cue, Appleâs vice president of Applications. âWeâre looking forward to bringing iTunes to even more music lovers when we launch our pan-EU music store soon.â
In addition to Best Buy, the company said that iTunes gift cards are available at all Target stores, Apple retail stores and online at www.itunes.com.
Apple has also scheduled a press briefing today (Thursday) at one of its future mini store locations near Stanford University. Apple has yet to disclose the precise locations of the remaining 5 mini locations it will launch this Saturday but will likely use this press event to do so.