Apple had an earnings call yesterday, and, as often, they’ve been printing money. $7.7 billion in profit in the last quarter; the iTunes Store generated $4.5 billion in revenue. As MacRumors says:
For the first fiscal nine months of the year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said iTunes software and services were the fastest growing part of Apple’s business. iTunes billings grew 25 percent year over year to an all time quarterly high, largely due to the App Store.
In the third quarter, iTunes generated $4.5 billion in revenue, an increase of 12 percent year over year.
The iTunes Store, which was once a break-even service, is now big business. Many tech companies would love to have that kind of revenue for their entire business, and for Apple, it’s just a small part of their total numbers. Amazing.
Note that the lion’s share of the increase is coming from the App Store, not from music or videos. What started as a music store has morphed into a powerful digital content storefront.