It’s no secret that Apple is now a much bigger company than the company we knew many years ago — huge successes such as the iPhone, iPad and even in its computer line has made Apple more successful than it’s ever been. But just how big, is Apple compared to before? Well, iTunes — a single and if anything very overlooked portion of their business, brings in more money every year than Apple did around 10 years ago.

Analyst Horace Dediu of Asymco has put together the numbers on the iTunes Store which also includes the App Store and iBookstore. He concludes that the business does $12 billion-a-year now. To put that into perspective, the entirety of Apple brought in a total of $8 billion in revenues in 2004. The iTunes business has eclipsed what Apple used to bring in as an entire company.

One reason for this is the success of Apple’s other gadgets feeds into the success of iTunes, as the service provides one of the easiest one-click solutions to downloading music and other media online legally. It also has arguably the leading selection of mobile apps at the moment. So as long as iPhones, iPads keep selling like they do, iTunes is going to continue to be big for them.

[via Business Insider]