This is an interesting little sign of just how vast Apple has become. If we consider iTunes as a stand alone company it is, on its own, one of the larger media companies out there. Not quite one of the real giants but a significant one all the same:
By itself, Apple’s iTunes (which was just updated) and App stores, which hawk everything from movies and music to books and newspaper subscriptions, make more money than The New York Times; Simon & Schuster, which publishes the best-selling “Steve Jobs” biography; Warner Bros. film studios, which owns the popular Batman film franchise; and Time Inc., the largest magazine publisher in the U.S.
Combined.
An interesting little factoid that.
The other thing that I found interesting was the explanation of the costs and margins of iTunes. Apple makes a 30% gross margin on whatever is bought through the store. For example, a song: but the credit card company is going to be charging some 25 cents as a basic fee on the purchase. A 99 cent sale, with a 30 cent (roughly!) margin and a 25 cent fee: well, Apple around and about washes its face on the deal.
But the card company isn't charging 25 cents per dollar of sales: it's much more like 25 cents minimum fee and then perhaps 1.5 % or 2% of the total sale. So two songs sold in one transaction start to make Apple a profit. And a $15 book makes them a very good one.
Which I find really quite amusing. It's iTunes, to a large extent, which has moved us all from buying albums to single songs: but Apple makes little to no profit by selling us single songs but would make out like bandits if we all bought albums.