Apple isn"t to happy with the current number of songs sold on its Music Store overseas. Steve Jobs is quoted saying "In the UK, the numbers are only about 50,000 songs being sold here a week. We sell 2.5m songs a week in the US." Though with time I"m sure Apple will start seeing better numbers.
I got a brief interview with Apple"s chief executive, Steve Jobs, right after Tuesday"s launch of iTunes music store in the UK, France and Germany. We didn"t get to use much in the final piece so, given the level of interest in the story, I thought I"d post a fuller, edited transcript of our chat here. Students of Jobs interviews - and I know there are some - will note his comments on the iPod"s changing role for Apple (it"s not seen as a flag-bearer for the whole Mac OS any more) and Jobs" repeated statement of admiration for Sony. Conspiracy theorists, start your engines...
NM: What"s the rationale behind the pricing of music on the store?
SJ: "We want to offer a really good product at a really aggressive price. We want to be the price leader. OD2 announced a price of 75p, but it"s from 75p. We looked at their store and we could only find very few songs. Most songs were at 99p.