In an environment where users are more likely to turn to piracy, Apple’s iTunes Store has climbed to second place among all legal US music stores and is second only to Wal-Mart, according to a new study by The NPD Group.
The research firm notes that about 29 million users, or 10 percent of all people acquiring music in the US, turned to paid download services throughout the course of 2007 and more often shopped at iTunes than through any other service. The total figure represented a jump of about five million versus 2006 and saw most sales go to buyers between 36 and 50 years old…
As many as one million people stopped buying CDs altogether in the last year, with nearly half of all teenagers — 48 percent — never having bought their music in the physical medium.
We’re already having discussions about DVD’s and Blu-Ray disappearing. Certainly, CD’s are part of that process.
Has the Apple iLick been released yer?
my question is how does wal mart become the top seller of music? All I know walmart for is tacky clothes, cheaply made chinese things like furniture and electronics, and the putrid smells of McDonalds and manure.
Simple, cheapest price.
#2,
All accross America is towns of about 10-20k people there used to be music stores, a couple even. They are all gone, and Walmart picked up the slack.
Hmmm, prices not so much, working in retail, I know it is all about the parking. If people are given a choice between two stores, one costs a little less, but has bad parking, and one costs a little more, but has plenty of easy parking, they will go to the one with parking every time.
I’d like to see the actual report, not just a snip-it from the press release. The actual numbers would be more informative. Until then, I’ll question how accurate the press release is.
[More info here. – ed.]
#2 Price and Volume. All those people buying “tacky clothes, cheaply made chinese things like furniture and electronics, and the putrid smells of McDonalds and manure.” also buy CDs.
#5 Who do you think is number 1 and 2 in music sales and what data, better that the press release, do you have to back that up?
#7
I kinda agree with #5 on form, if not substance.
You have been sucessfully troll baited. Eideard put the wrong headline up for the story. This is just a factoid from a broader research paper released today that basically says… The Music industry is finished, the last remnants of it will go away in the next couple of years.
Walmart and iTunes are number one and two because they are the only companies that havent gotten out of the business yet. iTunes seems to be the only outlet that is able to make money in the current reality, expect to see Walmarts CD selection begin to decline. In spite of that, iTunes does not make up (or even come close) to the broader music industry decline.
The age of “for pay” recorded music has ended.
#4 – Parking – thats why I go to Target
#10,
Here is the sick thing. The science shows that you pick Target over walmart because the cars in the parking lot look like yours.
Oh for the younger Dvorak readers… I mean ‘sick’ as in ‘bad’ not ‘sick’ as in cool;)
I’m just glad that I live close to an independent, ACTUAL music store where I can get suggestions on what’s good in music, and see what’s going on locally. Problem is they drop like flies. I guess that’s a benefit of living in the city.
I have gone to large department stores, and their music choice is abysmal at best. Maybe i’m being too picky, and wanting to listen to the music I like. I don’t know. could be me.
#4
Parking
Parking is horrible at the wal-farts around here, they will not plow the parking lots (24 hour thing?) and the slobs who jam into the stores leave empty carts all over the parking lot.
I do my best to avoid wal-fart.
I have a feeling I am responsible for this. I’ve bought a lot of music from iTunes.
#7, What’s wrong with seeing the actual numbers? I’d like to know how they collected their statistics and how other’s faired in comparison. Did they miss someone? Where did places like Amazon rank?
Looking at the group’s website, I just wonder if they were actually looking at all music sales or only the sales of their members.
Fair questions to ask.
#17,
Oh, you are going to put the bright lens of your skepticism on NPD and Forrester research numbers? LOL.
I hardly download anything; there might be 10 tracks in iTunes that were downloaded, and they were on a freebie given out by iTunes about 3 years ago. My music comes from new and used CDs. After downloading the CDs I keep them as backups. With over 100 CDs it takes a long time to reload music to an iPod or whatever, but at least I can do that legally.
The folks that keep the price of music CD’s up so high—no matter what—will kill the music CD. They must have their reasons.
#19, good luck. Technically, the RIAA views ripping your own cd’s to mp3’s as illegal. They view it as creating “unauthorized copies” and may make this their next legal frontier. Just revisit the Jeffery Howell case to see where the RIAA is going.
CD’s sound a lot better then any downloaded music, plus you can rip them the way you want. Some CD got a lot of crap tracks that you don’t want thought. 🙁
Apparently this story was written up before February 18, when Wal-Mart stopped selling DRM’d .wma downloads in favor of non-DRM’d .mp3 downloads. Anyone who’s downloaded music from Wal-Mart is now in for quite a shock, as the number of big artists is way, way down.
Just one example: Madonna’s offerings from Wal-Mart: just 22. Shakira: 0. That’s just two. Go ahead. Go to
http://musicdownloads.walmart.com
(IE only, of course…)
and search for your favorite music.
Good luck!
Sorry. Madonna has only 11 downloads, and they’re from 1996. I regret the error.