I recently read an article (via Ethos) about the success of the iTunes store which was encouraging. It seems that the sales of downloaded songs through iTunes have outpaced traditional stores like Tower Records. Good news, right?
Not so fast, according to this Bloomberg article (via Future of Music Blog):
"Digital music sales in the U.S., the world's biggest market, have hardly budged in the past five months. They almost tripled to 6.6 million downloads a week in the year through May, and were at 6.7 million in the week ended Oct. 23, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a unit of Dutch media company VNU NV.
The iPod, with more than 28.2 million sold, isn't providing the panacea that the music industry seeks."
Are we really expecting digital downloads to completely replace CD sales?
Is it fair to even compare today's market to sales figures from 5 years ago?
What is the answer?
I guess it depends on who you ask...
Comments