Well, drinks all round at Apple this morning, thanks in the main to Zero 7 fan Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas. Yesterday he downloaded the 100 millionth track from the iTunes service - a remix of Zero 7's 'Somersault'. With that download Apple passed a considerable milestone less than fourteen months after they launched their iTunes service in the US. Needless to say the news put Apple execs in a very good mood, with top man Steve Jobs again telling reporters: "iTunes has quickly outpaced the competition and is far and away the world's No. 1 online music service".
Hays won a 17-inch PowerBook computer, a 40-GB iPod music player and a voucher for 10,000 downloads for being the customer who made the landmark purchase. The fifty customers who previously had made each 100,000th purchase between 95 and 100 million tracks each won a 20-GB iPod.
Apple - whose iTunes service currently operates in the US, France, Germany and the UK - are now hoping they can maintain their market leader status as the download sector begins to expand into the mainstream. Apple have a natural affinity with early adopters. It remains to be seen if rivals Napster and Sony Connect, and the European download services powered by London based OD2, can make a dent in Apple's market share as less tech savvy consumers discover downloading.