Yesterday a Press Release from apple confirmed that iPod and iTunes stores are a hit in Japan. Number one store... with the iPod Market Share being close to 60%.

As you can see below, the iTunes Store in Japan has plenty to offer:

• More than a million songs


• 1,000 music videos


• Short films from Academy-Award winning Pixar Animation Studios (they awesome comic videos)


• 11,000 audiobooks


• 25,000 Podcasts


• Exclusive music videos from Beastie Boys and U2


• Newly added iTunes exclusives including tracks from Japanese and also International artists

The iPod market is also going high, and besides a thousand accessores for the iPod, it will also include iPod integration in a part of the automobiles sold next year, brands like Alfa Romeo, BMW, MINI, Peugoet and more will have access to this.

"Consistently maintaining a market share surpassing 50 percent since September, Apple has grown to be the only winner in the portable audio market in Japan," said Ichiro Michikoshi, editor-in-chief of WebBCN Ranking. "All eyes are on Apple to see how far it will grow its numbers in the holiday season."

Read the Press Release

While searching for a good image to include in this entry, I found it at ars technica-open forum, in this thread to be more exact. It has old (dated february 2005), but interesting news:



"Piper Jaffray conducted a survey of 200 iPod users in November that found 6 percent said they had switched to Apple's Macintosh personal computer from PCs for the first time since buying the iPod. Seven percent of those surveyed planned to switch to Mac from PC in the next year, Munster said this month."

The thread continues with a a great educated discussion about "mac vs windows" and other related issues.