Apple Computer said Wednesday that about 5 million free songs have been given away through a Pepsi promotion, far fewer than the 100 million tracks that could have been redeemed.
An Apple representative said the music giveaway was probably the biggest ever of its kind but admitted that the company gave away fewer songs than it had intended. "We had hoped the redemptions would have been higher," said Katie Cotton, Apple"s vice president of worldwide corporate communications. Customers with winning bottle caps have until Friday to redeem their free music tracks.
Cotton noted that the yellow-capped bottles with the Apple song codes were late in reaching some key markets. However, Cotton said the promotion did introduce a lot of people to iTunes. The 5 million free tracks Pepsi gave away were included as part of Apple"s statement earlier Wednesday that it has sold 70 million songs in the first year of its music service. Apple said last fall that it hoped to distribute 100 million tracks in its first year, but when that figure was calculated, it was expected that more winning bottle caps would be redeemed.