Sometimes comments are made at inauspicious times. Just a day after KISS bassist Gene Simmons declared that the music industry is dead and fans had killed it, Apple announced iTunes reached the 5 billion song download mark. That’s 5 billion legally purchased downloads. The company is also proud to announce along with that milestone, iTunes customers are renting or purchasing around 50,000 movies per day, making the virtual media store the most popular online movie destination.
Report: Online Video Viewers To Top One Billion In 2013
Online video’s popularity is going to skyrocket, and there’s no reason for anyone to miss out on the profits, according to a new report. ABI Research predicts that, in the year 2013, over one billion people will watch some sort of clip online.
Online Retail Sales To Hit $204 Billion
Online retail sales will continue to see solid growth with retail sales increasing 17 percent this year to $204 billion according to a Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research.Apparel ($26.6 billion), computers ($23.9 billion), and autos ($19.3 billion) will be the largest three sales categories."From higher shipping costs to changes in consumer shopping habits, online retailers are not immune to the current economic climate," said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org.
Online Gaming In China To Reach $3 Billion
The online games market in China is on track to surpass $3 billion in 2010 up from $1.66 billion in 2007, according to Pearl Research.
YouTube Had 9 Billion Video Views In January
YouTube received 9.8 billion video views in the U.S. for the month of January, down slightly from December’s record-breaking totals of 10.1 billion, comScore reported today.
Getty Images Sells For $2.4 Billion
Just a couple of weeks after Getty Images, the world’s largest stock images company, appeared to have failed to find a buyer for itself, the company announced an agreement to be sold to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC for $2.4 billion. That’s 55% more than the stock was valued on Wall Street.
Online Video Views Reach 10 Billion
In December 2007 U.S. Internet users viewed more than 10 billion videos online and it was the busiest month for online video consumption since comScore, which authored the report, began tracking online video.
Reed Elsevier To Buy ChoicePoint For $4.1 Billion
This deal doesn’t involve Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or any of the other companies we usually cover. But it does involve a heck of a lot of money – about $4 billion – and so the acquisition of ChoicePoint by Reed Elsevier seems worth a mention.
FCC Auction Bidding Tops $11.5 Billion
The big prize, a slice of spectrum covering the US, has stalled at a bid of $4.29 billion, under the Federal Communication Commission’s reserve price of $4.6 billion.
Game Sales Reach $9.5 Billion
Computer and video game software sales reached $9.5 billion in 2007, a 28 percent increase over the previous year and set a new record according to the NPD Group and announced by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Halo 3 was the best selling title of 2007 bringing in $170 million in revenue its first day of sales.