Apple has said that 3m people have downloaded its latest version of iTunes 10, however only a third have signed up to its new Ping social service within the music software.

Over 1m iTunes users have signed up for its new Ping social music service within iTunes, just 48 hours after it was launched on Wednesday, but the take up looks rather poor when you take into account the other 159m users of iTunes yet to have a go.

“One-third of the people who have downloaded iTunes 10 have joined Ping“, said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services in a statement. “As many more people download iTunes 10 in the coming weeks, we expect the Ping community to continue growing“.

However, while the 1m users sounds impressive it's just a fraction of the overall total iTunes users, that Apple confirmed on Wednesday was 160 million.

“iTunes is the number one music community in the world, with over 160 million iTunes users in 23 countries, and now we’re adding social networking with Ping,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO at the company's special event.

Ping lets you follow your favourite artists such as Lady Gaga, Coldplay, U2, Jack Johnson, Yo-Yo Ma and more, to see what they’re up to, check out photos and videos they’ve posted, see their tour dates and read comments about other artists and albums they’re listening to, says Apple.

In related news, Steve Jobs has already left the service. Although present in the demo of Ping on Wednesday, searching for the CEO brings back no results.