iTunes sales hit 50m in a year

MUSIC lovers across Europe have downloaded more than 50 million iTunes in the 12 months since the service was launched, Apple said today.

Customers across 17 countries bought songs which cost 79p each in the UK. iTunes Music Stores were first launched in France, Germany and the UK in June 2004 and later expanded across the continent.

Apple could not say how many of the 50,000 downloads were done from the UK.

Eddy Cue, vice president of applications at Apple, said: 'We're thrilled to have sold and delivered over 50 million songs in our first year. We'd like to thank European music fans for making iTunes such a success.'

The European iTunes Music Stores have catalogues of more than a million songs each. They include content from major music companies and over 1,000 independent record labels.

The service operates in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland in addition to the first three launch countries.