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iTunes is #2 Music Retailer, CD Sales Continue to Plummet

by Thomas Houston on February 27, 2008 at 05:57 PM




Apple's iTunes Music Store, the leader in legal online music sales, overtook Best Buy to become the second largest music retailer in the country. Older music fans age 36 to 50 -- not teens -- are at the root of iTunes' growth, and iTunes now trails only Wal-Mart in music sales.

The music market continues to reel under the changes to distribution brought on by the Web. NPD Group, a market research firm, recently released a new study documenting music sales and purchasing trends in the US. Online music downloads continue to grow, and listeners of all ages are moving away from compact discs.

NPD found that although music purchasing is up among 36 to 50 year olds, less than half of teens bought a single CD in 2007. Overall, CD purchases dropped 19% last year. According to the report, over one million teens stopped regularly purchasing CDs in 2007. Music fans of all ages cite price, convenience and choice as reasons for moving away from CDs to online downloads. Last year, 29 million users regularly (and legally) downloaded music online.

From LA Times, Engadget and Macworld



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Tags: apple, cd, itunes, music

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