European iTunes Music Store Tops 50 Million Songs in First Year

Apple today announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 50 million songs from its European iTunes Music Stores in their first year. iTunes Music Stores were launched in the UK, France and Germany in June 2004, and now operate in 17 European countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The European iTunes Music Stores have catalogues of over one million songs each, and feature content from all major music companies and over 1,000 independent record labels.

“We're thrilled to have sold and delivered over 50 million songs in our first year”, said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Applications. “We'd like to thank European music fans for making iTunes such a success”.

All iTunes Music Stores offer the same innovative features, breakthrough pricing and seamless integration with iPod that have made iTunes the number one online music service in the world. Since its launch just two years ago, the iTunes Music Store has extended its reach to more than 70 percent of the global music market with stores in 19 countries, including the US and Canada, and more than 430 million songs purchased and downloaded worldwide.

Every iTunes Music Store offers Mac and PC users the same innovative features such as iMix, Party Shuffle, audiobooks, the ability to create and print stunning jewel case inserts, and automatic WMA to AAC conversion. iTunes has most recently added the ability for customers to download videos with select albums and singles, as well as the ability to pre-order albums. All iTunes Music Stores feature the same groundbreaking personal use rights, giving users the ability to play songs on up to five personal computers, burn a single song onto CDs an unlimited number of times, burn the same playlist up to seven times and listen to their music on an unlimited number of iPods.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, Mac OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store.

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Email: media.uk@apple.com
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