ClassicComposer's Journal: iTunes sales are NOT plummeting

A widely publicized article on diminishing iTunes sales figures resulted in a 3% drop in apple stock. That article, slashdotted here earlier this week was based on one finding in a larger report that examined credit card transactions processed by iTunes. Yesterday the authors of that study posted a blog message to try and do a little damage control.

A UK outfit called The Register and Bloomberg decided to dive in and highlight one finding of the report -- that iTunes sales had dropped in the first six months of this year. We got treated to wonderful headlines about iTunes sales "collapsing" and "dropping" and "plummeting" and so on. Now for the record, iTunes sales are not collapsing. Our credit card transaction data shows a real drop between the January post-holiday peak and the rest of the year, but with the number of transactions we counted it's simply not possible to draw this conclusion . . . as we pointed out in the report. But that point was just too subtle to get into these articles.