Apple Conf Call Quotes on iPods, iTunes Music Store, Podcasts and Renting Music (AAPL, NAPS)

Apple (ticker: AAPL) CFO Peter Oppenheimer discussed iPods, the iTunes Music Store and owning versus renting music in his company's FQ3 earnings conference call. His comments are of interest to Apple watchers and anyone tracking paid content, e-commerce or the prospects for other online music companies such as Napster (ticker: NAPS). Extracts:

Our music business generated 38% of total Apple revenue, and was up 317% compared to the year-ago quarter. We shipped 6.2 million iPods during the quarter… setting a new record for quarterly shipments...

According to the latest data available from NPD Tech World, iPods had about 75% share of the entire MP3 player market in the United States during the month of May, while our next closest competitor had less than 5% market share...

The iTunes Music Store continues to be the world's leading online music service. It operates in 19 countries which represents about 70% of the global music business. We are close to crossing the major milestone of 0.5 billion songs sold, and despite increased competition from companies like Napster, Microsoft and Yahoo!, our share of legally purchased and downloaded music in the United States has actually increased to above 80% as measured by Nielsen SoundScan.

…Regarding the iTunes Music Store, it did operate above break-even this quarter.

…With our share… growing to over 80%… we just don't think very many customers are interested in renting their music. So we think that the success of the iTunes Music Stores show that most customers want to own their music.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)