Apple’s iTunes music software and online store may have its detractors, but that hasn’t stopped its continued rise in popularity — at least not in the US. MacWorld.com is reporting that Apple’s iTunes store is now the second-largest music retailer in the United States. Wal-Mart continues to hold the number one spot, with thousands of locations around the country, and it’s own fledgling online music store.
The industry research firm NDP reported the results this week, and noted a continuing decrease in the sale of music CDs, especially among the younger generation.
iTunes now has an estimated 50 million customers, and is closing in on 4 billion songs sold. The iTunes catalog of music tracks is also estimated to be the largest in the world, with approximately 6 million songs on offer.
The NDP report paints a dismal picture of CD music sales in the US, noting that the all-important 18 to 49 demographic are buying less and less CDs every year. For example, the report claims that 48% of teenagers in the United States didn’t buy even a single CD during 2007. That number was up sharply from the 38% who shunned CD albums in 2006. The NDP claims that as many as one million consumers “opted out” of the CD music market in 2007, and projected trends expect this number to grow significantly in 2008.
Poor performance by music CDs led to increased sales for Apple’s iTunes in 2007, but not all consumers are dropping CDs in favor of iTunes; the popularity of peer-to-peer music and video sharing software continued to rise in 2007, growing 17% from 2006.
The report indicates that iTunes is now responsible for 10% of all music purchased in the United States, and the number of consumers buying music online increased to 29 million last year, a significant rise over the previous year.
Surprisingly, the largest area of growth in online music sales is among consumers between the ages of 36 and 50, so it’s not just the teens that are signing up on iTunes.
These figures are certainly good news for the music industry, which has struggled to come to terms with the new digital marketplace, and has seen overall music sales plummet over the last 10 years.
Amazon.com’s MP3 store also made a significant dent in online sales in 2007. In fact, all of the major online music distributors saw increases last year. In 2008 we can expect to see CDs continue to lose ground, and online stores such as iTunes and Amazon.com attract new customers.
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[...] Earlier this year iTunes became the number two music retailer in the US, just behind super retailer Wal-Mart. Industry analysts and experts were amazed that Apple’s fledgling online music store had become so big in so little time. But now Apple is claiming that iTunes has reached the number one position in the U. S. market, outselling even Wal-Mart. [...]
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