IP Democracy: Apple Reports One Million iTune Video Downloads

Amid the debates over whether the iPod’s screen is big enough to attract a large customer base for videos, Apple announced today that it has racked up one million video downloads from iTunes in the first 20 days. “Selling one million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal video downloads,” Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said in a press release. “Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods.”

While not a record for Apple — music downloads topped one million within four days after the launch of iTunes — the amount is significant given the relatively thin choices offered. In addition to 2,000 music videos, iTunes offers only a few selected top TV shows from ABC (Lost, Desperate Housewives, That’s So Raven) and some free news content from ABC affiliated TV stations.

If most of the downloads were paid content, at $1.99/pop the total revenue generated by Apple for video downloads since the launch of the video iPod is nearly $2 million. On an annual basis, that’s about $36.3 million. But, revenues are likely to mushroom as more content makes its way to iTunes and as more video-capable iPods penetrate the market.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on October 31, 2005 11:16 AM to IP Democracy