In the first half of 2005, sales of CD albums fell about 8.5% from 301.2 million during the first half of 2004 to 282.6 million units this year. On the other hand, legal music downloads rose by almost 3 times during the same period, from 55 million songs in the first half of 2004 to 158 million songs in the same period this year. Despite this rise, when taken into account with CD purchases, this still leaves an overall album sales decline of 2.5%
The significant increase in online sales is driven by both the music industry's campaign of suing those who share copyrighted music online as well as the major grown in portable digital music players. Other factors include the ability to purchase individual tracks rather than by the album as well as larger music libraries.
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However, the figures, from Nielsen SoundScan, reveal that the growth in legal downloads has yet to compensate the music industry for falling CD sales. Sales of albums were down seven per cent year on year, to 282.6m units, the researcher said. Factor in downloads and the decline is down to 2.5 per cent, falling from 309m units in H1 2004 to 301.2m in H1 2005, SoundScan's numbers show. It puts the number of downloaded albums at the equivalent of 17.6m units, up from 6m in H1 2004. |
In my opinion, the strong market of the
iPod makes a
significant difference since the iTunes software that comes with it promotes
its music store upon installation. As the record labels increase the
amount of CDs featuring
some sort of DRM or copy-protection, this also drives iPod consumers away
from CDs to online services, since the rights management software on these CDs do not support
the iPod.
Feel free to discuss about online music download
services on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues.
Source: The Register - eCommerce
