Digital Music Market Boom

As Consumers Continue to Take Legal Route, Online Music Market to Experience Healthy Growth is latest report from In-Stat verifies that the Internet becomes a key distribution channel for digital music sales.

• Nearly half of the survey respondents admitted to downloading music from the Internet; and 64 percent of these respondents have paid for the music.
  
  
• The largest percentage of respondents who have purchased music online spent between $10 and $20 in the last 12 months.
  
  
• The most popular site used was iTunes, with 53 percent of music purchasers having used the site.
  

As reported in the March 28 Research Brief from the Center for Media Research: Online Music, Music, Music

• Online sales of digital music represented almost 6 percent of the total worldwide music market in 2005. This figure is up from virtually zero in 2003.
  
  
• According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), paid-for digital single downloads reached 420 million in 2005, which is more than double the number of digital singles downloaded in 2004.
  
  
• Another method is subscription-based services, with the overall subscriber base reaching 2.8 million, up from 1.5 million in 2004.
  
  
• Online song catalogues doubled to nearly 2 million songs on all major online music services. In addition, the number of legitimate music sites reached 335 worldwide, up from 50 in 2003.

• Mobile phones have evolved from basic voice-based handsets to multimedia handsets used for different functions such as voice, data, music, music distribution and video.

The last tidbit of information is important. As cell phones turn into multimedia handsets, all sorts of opportunities will arise for the savvy marketer.

Stay tuned,


Eileen