Apple’s iTunes Music Store is now the 2nd-largest music retailer in the U.S. NPD Market Research announced today that the digital music distributor has edged out major CD vendors BestBuy and Target, trailing only the sales behemoth Wal-Mart. The announcement marks a significant landmark in the ongoing market shakeup between digital and physical music retail.
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Apple’s iTunes Music Store is now the 2nd-largest music retailer in the U.S. NPD Market Research announced today that the digital music distributor has edged out major CD vendors BestBuy and Target, trailing only the sales behemoth Wal-Mart. The announcement marks a significant landmark in the ongoing market shakeup between digital and physical music retail.
Since its launch in 2003, iTunes has reportedly sold over 4 billion songs to more than 50 million customers, leading the way for other distributors like Amazon.com to start their own online music stores. As of 2007, NPD reports, 10 percent of all music sales in the U.S. take place digitally. Meanwhile, CD sales continue to recede. As a whole, the per capita spending across the industry dropped from $44 to $40.
NPD expects the trend to continue. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we see the same things continuing into 2008 because what our research is showing is that teens are continuing to check out on the CD,” commented senior analyst Russ Crupnick. Still, legal digital downloads remain a mere tenth of industry sales, leaving experts to reassure that we won’t be totally abandoning the CD anytime soon.
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