When it comes to storing most of our online entertainment, Google (GOOG 0.42%) and its Drive file system isn't top dog. Neither is Microsoft's (MSFT 1.57%) SkyDrive or Amazon.com's (AMZN 0.87%) Cloud Drive. The winner? Apple (AAPL 2.15%), says a new report from Strategy Analytics.
The survey asked respondents which digital locker services they use to store music or video. iCloud and iTunes topped the list with 27% using Apple's services. Surprisingly, Dropbox ranked second, two percentage points ahead of Cloud Drive.
Source: Strategy Analytics.
Whether or not this is the first time anyone's taken a serious look at the "entertainment cloud," I think it's fair to say that -- up to this point -- we've largely overlooked Apple's growing presence online. How we could not? We're too busy covering efforts by Google and Microsoft to win users to their respective cloud productivity suites.
Let's take a break from that back and forth for a moment and consider a few numbers not included in the Strategy Analytics report, but which reflect the Mac Maker's increasing influence:
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Last month, Apple marked 1 billion downloads of iTunes U course content.
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Also last month, the iTunes Store celebrated 25 billion songs sold.
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Finally, in January, CEO Tim Cook said Apple had sold a half billion iOS devices.
Source: Apple.
Imagine if only a third of them were backed up to iCloud. I'm almost surprised Apple doesn't possess a greater share of the entertainment cloud. At the very least, I suspect some of its $140 billion fortune might go to building an overseas data center for serving the increasing number of iOS devices in use in non-U.S. markets.
Put simply: The cloud is expanding fast but, if the data is to be believed, not nearly as fast as iCloud.
