The music industry may have thought the U2 marketing machines may have been a bit crazy to suggest "giving" the album away. The cross promotion created opportunities that exposed the holes within the music distribution. U2 created a a deal that included delivery of the complete album to every iTunes account free of charge and the band providing the promotional support to Apple during their annual developers conference. Its been suggested that Apple paid 100 million for the right to release the album. As the smoke cleared U2 released their album to the world apple users and over night increased their audience.
Four months after Songs of Innocence’s September release, U2 accounted for “23% of all music listened on iOS devices throughout January 2015,” according to an independent study conducted by the Kantar Group and announced by the band.
Even more impressive, the numbers put Bono & co. as the “most-listened-to act” on the iOS platform as a whole, beating out fan favorites Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, who garnered 11% and 8% of all plays, respectively.
An independent study has concluded that U2 accounted for 23% of all music listened on iOS devices throughout January 2015.
The study, conducted by the Kantar Group, found that not only was U2 the most-listened-to act on the iOS platform, but that more users were listening to U2 than the second (Taylor Swift at 11%) and third (Katy Perry at 8%) runners-up combined.
Additionally, Kantar found that 95% of the U2 listeners listened to one or more tracks from the band’s current album, Songs Of Innocence.