iLounge: Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster expects revenue from Apple’s 20 iTunes Music Stores to account for 5 percent of the company’s revenue in 2006. "Assuming 133 million iTunes downloads in the June quarter and applying that across the reported 6.2 million iPod shipments, Apple is averaging 6.1 iTunes downloads per iPod (based on the entire iPod estimated installed base through Jun-05)," Munster writes in a research note obtained by iLounge. "If we apply this 6.1x ratio to our cumulative iPod installed base estimates through CY06, iTunes downloads for CY06 would be 1.365 billion vs. our current estimate of 877 million."
What an irresistible picture for anyone who’s thinking about producing podcasts that subscribers would pay for to get them. The business model’s quite simple – if you offer something that people are willing to pay for, they will.
While iTunes makes it all terribly easy, and definitely should be seriously considered as an outlet, it’s not necessarily the most appropriate channel for a business. A business might have proprietary or commercially-sensitive information that would be available only to its paying clients or customers and not via an open channel like iTunes.
And iPods and other digital players aren’t just the province of Gen Yers – just walk down any busy street in the business district in any major European city and you’ll notice the Gen Xers (and even baby boomers) in suits with cables running out of their ears.
In any event, what’s the betting that someone – whether a music producer, an individual with something to say or an organization with a perceived-value message – will be doing this soon and will build a paying-subscriber base?
My bet would be – starting by the end of Q3.