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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK

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Urge versus iTunes - Download Wars Continue

May 18, 2006

Brand Republic yesterday reported the launch of Urge, the music download site created by MTV and Microsoft to compete with iTunes. In its first two days, Urge has enjoyed some popularity in the UK. Yesterday, the day it was launched, the site ranked 645 among the 2,483 websites in the Hitwise Music category, up from 1,989 the day before.

In order to catch up with rivals the site has a long way to go. Yesterday, the iTunes website received a 20 time larger share of UK visits than Urge. (It is worth noting that Hitwise tracks visits to websites, not downloaded software and so the visits we are reporting are for visits to the iTunes website, from where the iTunes software can be downloaded.)

So far, Urge is receiving the majority of its visits from the WindowsMedia.com website and CMT. WindowsMedia.com has a prominent promotion for Urge on the homepage. CMT announced yesterday that it was partnering with MTV for the launch and the news story announcing the partnership includes a link to the Urge website.

Ipod Losing Steam?
Beyond iTunes, Urge faces another challenge to taking a significant piece of the music download market - the iPod. The following chart shows the share of searches for "ipod" compared with rival players that Urge is meant to support. Combining the share of UK internet searches for "iriver", "zen" and "sony walkman", searches for "ipod" are three times higher.

However, the chart at the end of this entry clearly illustrates that searches for "ipod" are significantly lower than they were last year. In fact, comparing searches for "ipod" the week ending 13th May 2006 with the week ending 14th May 2005, the share of UK internet searches for "ipod" have fallen 61%. At the same time, searches for "sony walkman" have increased 34%.

As the battle for dominance in music downloads rages, if the iPod loses its position as the UK's favourite accessory, this will certainly prove a feather in the hat for Microsoft and MTV.

Music Players Searches.png