It turns out that the rumors were right about U2’s participating at Apple’s event and that how the the band’s new album, Songs of Innocence, would be free for download for all iTunes users. That being said, some of you guys might have noticed that the album has been preloaded on your devices and all you’d have to do is click download to save it on your phone.
Well so the question is, how many people have actually taken advantage of this freebie? Well according to reports, it seems that the album has been downloaded a whopping 2 million times since its giveaway on Tuesday. Given that Apple claims that they have over 500 million iTunes customers, this means only 0.4% of Apple’s customers have actually downloaded the album.
0.4% does seem small, although 2 million album downloads in the music industry is a pretty big deal. Also to be fair, not every iOS user is a fan of U2 and might not bother downloading the album, but like we said, 2 million is a big deal and in the wake of the free download, it seems to have spurred the demand for U2’s older works.
As it stands, 17 of U2’s albums have since made it onto the iTunes Top 100 chart, with a remastered version of “The Joshua Tree” from 1987 sitting at the number 12 spot. So, what do you guys think? Were you one of the 2 million downloads, and would you like to see Apple giveaway more freebies like this in the future?