iTunes bests Best Buy in music sales, second only to Wal-Mart

According to a leading market research firm called NPD Group iTunes is now the number two source of music in the US. The 2007 sales figure has iTunes now beating out Best Buy and Target. But will iTunes beatiTunes Wal-Mart one day or will other sources of digital downloads steal of some Apple's market share?

iPod and iPhone users have pumped iTunes into the stratosphere in total music sales in 2007. NPD Group has been gathering statistics on music sales since mid 2006 when iTunes was number four in total music sales behind Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target. But those numbers only took into account the last quarter of 2006. But the new figures come from the full year of 2007.

To equalize any discrepancies between a single .99-cent track downloaded on iTunes against an entire CD purchase at Wal-Mart or Best Buy, NPD group uses a 12-track to a CD tally.

NPD's research also suggests that only about 10-percent of all music downloaded is through legal downloads like iTunes. Music purchases in total increased in 2007 by six-percent but partly because of the decline of the CD, overall spending on music is down by ten-percent.

I think it's pretty obvious that it says people want the flexibility of single song downloads and are willing to pay to download them online. Buying a bunch of songs you don't want for a single song on a CD makes no sense to a younger generation that's accustomed to digital downloads.

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