Apple says online music sales exceeding expectations

CNETnews.com

Apple Computer Inc. says it exceeded record industry expectations by selling more than 1 million songs since the launch of its online music store a two weeks ago.

"Our internal measure of success was having the iTunes Music Store sell one million songs in the first month," said Doug Morris, CEO of the Universal Music Group. "To do this in one week is an over-the-top success."

The sales affirm what analysts and industry executives have said of the Apple iTunes Music Store - that it's one of the most consumer-friendly methods yet of buying songs electronically and legally.

Songs are 99 cents per download, and unlike competitors the Apple service has virtually no copy protection. Customers can keep the songs indefinitely, share them on as many as three Macintosh computers and play them on any number of iPod portable music players. No subscriptions are necessary and buyers can burn unlimited copies of the songs onto CDs.

More than half of the songs were purchased as albums, Apple said. The company also sold 20,000 of the newest iPod models over the weekend and received more than 110,000 orders.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs won licensing deals with all five major record labels to open the online music outlet -- a coup that other industry-backed, subscription-based online services obtained only recently after more than a year of stagnant sales.

The iTunes Music Store launched April 28 with 200,000 tracks.

About 3,000 more songs have recently been added, Apple said.