Analyst: iTunes Costs Apple $1B Annually To Maintain?

With iTunes 10 launched recently, Apple is enjoying a healthy position in the music market at the moment, but did you ever wonder how much it costs Apple to keep everything running? It probably won’t concern the average consumer much, but analysts over at Asymco estimate that iTunes costs Apple a juicy $1 billion annually to run and maintain. Despite Apple getting 30% of the sales of apps from its App Store and profits from music sales, a billion bucks is still a very significant figure. It’s estimated that iTunes cost Apple over $30 million a month to operate back in 2009, but the figure has since jumped to over $75 million a month now, which is nearly a billion a year.