Digital flatline looks ominous for music labels

[sandbox]

Keep an i on your stocks!

The leading DRM digital download service, Apple's iTunes, has experienced a collapse in sales revenues this year according to analyst company Forrester Research.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/11/di...loads_flatline/

http://apple.slashdot.org/

[krissel]

That's the allarmist view. Those idiots don't realize that Apple makes pennies from selling the tunes. It's the pods that are the profit. As long as they are selling well it won't impact the bottom line if the iTunes store is slow.

[D76]

The bottom line: anyone who claims iPod sales are collapsing can't do basic math, says this guy.

QUOTE

I always enjoy Forrester's Josh Bernoff's writing and analysis, but we often don't see the same data the same ways. So when I read yesterday's New York Times quick article claiming that iPods aren't driving iTunes sales, I decided that they must have misquoted him. When I saw today's article in The Register claiming that iTunes sales are collapsing, I decided there was enough silliness being repeated over and over that I had to run some numbers myself.

[Paddy]

Gad...you'd think after the past few years, analysts would have given up predicting doom and gloom and imminent demise for Apple, wouldn't you?

I like your guy's analysis, D76.

Me? I still buy CDs of albums I want - and I buy them used about half the time. I prefer the higher quality lossless versions and still play CDs occasionally too. Sometimes I get a particular song or two from the iTunes store. The 40GB iPod that belongs to my husband is loaded mostly from our 600 or so CDs. My 15-year-old son's iPod is a slightly different story - he does use the iTunes store a lot more.

[krissel]

Here's Cramer's take:  

Video

http://publish.vx.roo.com/thestreet/portal...amp;bitrate=300



And a new upgrade for Apple:

http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/myway...mp;alias=/ht/nw