iLounge

Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster expects revenue from Apple’s 20 iTunes Music Stores to account for 5 percent of the company’s revenue in 2006.

“Assuming 133 million iTunes downloads in the June quarter and applying that across the reported 6.2 million iPod shipments, Apple is averaging 6.1 iTunes downloads per iPod (based on the entire iPod estimated installed base through Jun-05),” Munster writes in a research note obtained by iLounge. “If we apply this 6.1x ratio to our cumulative iPod installed base estimates through CY06, iTunes downloads for CY06 would be 1.365 billion vs. our current estimate of 877 million.”

Munster also notes that the Japanese iTunes Music Store is off to a fast start. “iTunes is off to a strong start in Japan, where customers downloaded more than one million tracks in the first four days following the launch of the service,” Munster said. “According to media reports, before the iTunes launch, the top music download service in Japan (Sony) averaged 450k songs sold per month. We see the successful launch in Japan as another indicator that pockets of untapped demand remain in the international market for digital music.”