Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - US
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October 31, 2007
iTunes overtakes Free Music Downloads in Internet Searches
I noticed a few weeks ago that US Internet searches for "itunes" had overtaken searches for "free music downloads". As you can see from the following chart, the share of US Internet searches for "free music downloads" and "itunes" follow a similar pattern. Over the holidays searches for "itunes" and "free music downloads" spike as consumers look to fill their new iPods with new music.
In 2005 and 2006, searches for "itunes" overtook "free music downloads" in late December, but remained lower the rest of the year. However, in September 2007 that changed. Year-on-year, the share of US Internet searches for "itunes" rose 66% while searches for "free music downloads" decreased 43%.
I find this interesting for two reasons. First, it emphasizes Apple's increasing strength in the music download market. Second, it illustrates the rise of a branded term over a generic term.
We've noticed over the past couple of years a rise in the share of searches for branded terms while the share of generic keywords is decreasing. The branded term "itunes" has increased as "free music downloads" has decreased. The theory goes that as consumers figure out where they can get what they want, they shift their search behavior from searching for the thing to navigating to the desired brand.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 07:33 AM
Posted to Music
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Comments
aren't 'free music downloads' branded too (limewire etc)?
Posted by: c byrne at November 1, 2007 05:10 AM
What about trends for the emerging "DRM-FREE MP3" movements? As Apple, Amazon and the major labels scramble for prominence in this market?
Posted by: tw at November 1, 2007 11:18 PM
Its really amazing that Itunes shown increase from 0.025% to approx 0.12% in just very short time span.
as after this great fluctuation, situation is quite comparable between both of the terms,it could be considered as temporary driving-shift of people in target searches from generic ones and more common terms to specific terms. Though for selected time span there is a visible increase in percentage search share of generic search term "free music downloads" too ; but it was not as significant as "itunes" shift.
Posted by: Jatin Juthani at November 3, 2007 03:40 AM
C, Thanks for your comment. When I say "free music downloads" that is the search term that consumers were entering. We consider it non-branded as it doesn't include a brand name and it doesn't send almost all of its traffic to one particular website.
Searches for "limewire" are counted separately - as are searches for other music download services.
Hope that clears things up.
Heather
Posted by: Heather Hopkins at November 5, 2007 09:16 AM
I think that can be attributed to the popularity of the iPhone and ipod.
Posted by: Steve at November 7, 2007 05:55 PM
It will be interesting if you add “free mp3” with “free music downloads”. Generally, people hear the song (promos) on TV/Radio first and then they would be searching for a particular song/album. And mp3 being the most popular format, they would add it in the search query to maximize their chances of locating it. The keyword “mp3” clearly tells the intent to download free music as “free music downloads” suggests. So without adding the count of “mp3” searches, the statistic could be misleading.
Posted by: Arun at November 12, 2007 12:24 PM
