Disney: $1 Mln in Movies Sold via iTunes

Disney says that in its first week of sales it sold 125,000 movies - $1 million in sales - via Apple's new iTunes video store.

At a Goldmand Sacks Group investor conference held yesterday, Disney CEO Roer Iger said the company had sold 125,000 Disney movies via Apple’s new iTunes digital video store during its first week of operation “at no marketing expense to us at all.” The sales account for $1 million in movie sales, and Iger says it expects to see $50 million in iTunes movie sales by the end of 2006. “We are very, very bullish on consumption over electronically delivered media and we’re taking a very optimistic view of technology as a friend, or a great enabler, and not a great predator,” said Iger.

Disney is currently the only studio offering movies through Apple’s iTunes store, including 75 films ranging from the first Pirates of the Caribbean flick to Pixar offerings like The Incredibles, and older Disney classics like Cinderella, and offerings from subsidiaries like Miramax and Hollywood Pictures including Good Will Hunting and The Sixth Sense. But Disney’s sales success, if sustained, my persuade other studios to make their material available via iTunes, particularly as Apple rolls out its forthcoming iTV appliance.

Iger also let drop a tidbit about the iTV: apparently, it includes a hard drive.