Disney Breaks iTunes Sales Record



PC Advisor
May 10, 2007


The Walt Disney Co sold 23.7 million television episodes and two million movies via Apple’s iTunes Store in its most recent quarter, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Last November Iger reported that Disney had sold close to 500,000 movies since launching them on the iTunes Store in September, 2006. He said at that time that Disney's ABC TV subsidiary had sold about 12 million TV shows through the iTunes Store since the service began offering TV shows for download.

In February, 2007, Iger followed up with news that Disney had sold 1.3 million films through the iTunes Store. Taken collectively, that shows that Disney movie sales through the iTunes Store have flattened slightly over the past quarter - perhaps not surprising, given that some users were probably buying new content for video iPods purchased as gifts over the holiday season.

Looking forward to the rest of 2007, Disney's looking for major revenue from the third instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, which opens later this month, and with Ratatouille, Pixar's latest computer-animated feature, which hits theatres this summer.

Apple plans to launch iTunes movies in Europe by the end of 2007.