This week, Apple revealed that iTunes has reached 575 million accounts.
Armed with the account info and historical revenue numbers, Apple blogger Horace Dediu looked at what each each iTunes account was worth to Apple: $40/per user in iTunes spending.
But then he considered that these people are likely to own other Apple products. With a few assumptions, he calculated that each iTunes user was worth, in total, about $300 per year to Apple.
iTunes revenue has been steadily growing over the years but Dediu finds that as the number of users grow, revenue per user declines. That's to be expected and not a knock against Apple, he says.
Enter Apple's new iTunes Radio service: if people do use it to buy music, not just stream music, that will boost the per-user revenue.
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