OnlineMusicSales
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Apple passes Amazon to become the #3 US music retailer
Things must seem pretty rosy in Cupertino -- just a week before the mega-hyped launch of you-know-what, market research group NPD's quarterly survey shows Apple has passed Amazon to become the third biggest music retailer in the US. This isn't the biggest of surprises, since Steve himself predicted that the iTunes Store would overtake Amazon at the Showtime event back in September, but the leap to #3 is a little unexpected, since Apple also outpaced Target last quarter. iTunes is now rocking a 10% market share, just behind Wal-Mart at 16% and Best Buy at 14%, and while we don't expect to see it pass those two giants anytime soon, we'd bet that uptick in DRM-free sales has got the iTMS crew at Apple licking their chops.
Google: not gonna do music
Maybe it's because taking on iTunes is foolhardy -- unless you're those guys -- or because partnering with Apple is nigh impossible, or maybe it's just because their current video store was something of a flop. But for whatever the reason, it looks like Google's staying out of the online music sales game after all -- or at least so they claim. At this year's NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) conference, Google came in and stole the show... by announcing that gTunes wasn't on the menu now, or any time soon according to Chris Sacca, head of business development for G. Instead, Sacca yammered on and on about the need for music stores to come together, form unified standards, improve usability -- you know, really take on the issues surrounding the utter domination of Apple's online music sales. We understand, however, most of the presentation was overtaken by the sweet sighs of relief by the attendees no longer worried about the search cutting into their fatted-cow 1.3% market share (with a 0.5% margin).
