Three days after the launch of iTunes, consumers purchased over three million songs per day and by the end of the year, over a billion. The iTunes Music Store began dominating the online music industry, offering its customers the latest music, TV shows, music videos, and short films at reasonable prices.
On this day, February 22nd, in 2006, Alex Ostrovsky from West Bloomfield, Michigan purchases iTunes Music Store’s 1 billionth song, “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay. Ostrovsky was awarded a prize package of a $10,000 iTunes gift card, a 20-inch iMac computer, and 10 60GB iPods. That’s not all. A scholarship was also launched in Ostrovsky’s name at Julliard School of Music in New York City. On this day Steve Jobs, the CEO at Apple, also put a banner on his website thanking all of his consumers for legally purchasing music rather than endorsing piracy.
In its fetal stages, iTunes broke even with only music sales. Songs sold for 99 cents a piece with 69 cents going to music labels. To increase income, Apple invented the iPod and iMac, which became its main source of revenue.