Surprise: Warner admits iTunes sales slow on price hikes

Warner Music revealed its financial results today - admitting more expensive tracks just didn’t sell as quickly. As we know, iTunes now lets labels charge more per track, if they so choose.

The effect? Warner admits digital revenue growth in the last quarter of 8 percent compared to 20 percent in the previous year's corresponding quarter.

“This is in line with an industry-wide slowdown in which year-over-year “digital track equivalent album unit growth” dropped to 5 percent in the December quarter, after being at 10 percent in the September quarter and 11 percent in the June quarter,” we’re told by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

This, according to the Byzantine logic of Big Music, equates to a “net positive” for Warner. So - selling fewer tracks by artists to fewer people is a success, so long as the profit per tune ranks high.

Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. - who called this a “net positive” - predicted subscription services could eventually become more important than iTunes type sales.

“The number of potential subscribers dwarves the number of people purchasing music on iTunes," he said.

In the subscription model, of course, people pay a few cents for each track they have access too.