Today in 2003, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store. The store sold more than 1 million tracks in its first five days and became the biggest music vendor in the U.S. five years later.
Ten years later, 26 million songs were available on iTunes. On October 3, 2022, Apple celebrated 100 million songs on iTunes:
One hundred million songs — it’s a number that will continue to grow and exponentially multiply. But it’s more than just a number, representing something much more significant — the tectonic shift in the business of music making and distribution over these past two decades.
Back in the 1960s, only 5,000 new albums were released each year. Today, anywhere in the world, in 167 countries and regions on Apple Music, any artist of any description can write and record a song and release it globally. Every day, over 20,000 singers and songwriters are delivering new songs to Apple Music — songs that make our catalog even better than it was the day before. One hundred million songs is evidence of a more democratic space, where anyone, even a new artist making music out of their bedroom, can have the next big hit.