Since the launch of iTunes last Thursday, Apple have served over one million downloads of its Windows iTunes software.  Despite all these Windows iTunes software downloads, the average iTunes song purchase to software download ratio works out much less than that for the Mac.  Apple has also sold over one million songs since the launch last Thursday although this includes songs sold to both Mac and Windows iTunes' users.  This is half the time taken compared with when Apple first launched its iTunes store originally for the Mac.

Apple has coaxed more than one million downloads of its iTunes DRM store out of Windows users in four days. The iTunes for Windows software is flying off the virtual shelves at a quicker pace than the Mac-only code. The funny thing, however, is that Windows users don't appear to have much of a music appetite. Apple is selling about one song per download of its software. "iTunes users have purchased over one million songs in the first three and a half days since our launch last Thursday, which compares with one million songs in the first seven days when we introduced the original iTunes for Mac users last April," said Steve Jobs, CEO at Apple. The million songs Jobs refers to includes by Mac and Windows iTunes sales, which makes it hard to tell exactly how many songs the Windows user have bought since the service launched last week. All told Apple has shipped 14 million songs since iTunes launched last April. Apple is being nickel and dimed by the music industry, which means this impressive sales don't add too much to the company's bottom line. But a million anything is compelling for Apple given its meager share of the computer market. Vulture Central accounts for at least one download of the iTunes for Windows software, but we're yet to reach the music store. The music service is running on an old Celeron-powered system that even with 192MB of memory can't manage to load the actual music buying part of Apple's service. Makes you wonder what kind of beast this iTunes for Windows is. The software, however, is running fine on the Mac. We've downloaded more songs than we care to admit given the high per track cost and DRM baggage. Why a song costs just as much when delivered via the Internet sans packaging instead of by a complex global shipping system is a question that needs answering. We also wonder why users are paying the same price for music but can't do what ever they like with their property.

Despite all the issues that many users are experiencing with iTunes on Windows, they have really succeeded in selling a large quantity of songs to Windows PC owners; many times more than that of most other legal download services.  With DRM restrictions and a high price per track it is surprising that they have managed to sell this many tracks so quickly.  If their software download rate keeps up, they will be very close to the weekly Kazaa download rate off Download.com. 

Source: The Register