25% Of All Music Sold In The US, Sold Through iTunes

[admin]

NPD today said that iTunes now represents 25% of all music sold in the United States, and that 35% of all music sales are now digital downloads.

If you need more evidence that digital downloads are the future, at least for music, then these figures should be pretty convincing.

Apple's dominance in the digital market is frightening though, because the second most popular digital download store is Amazon, but it only does 8% of music sales. For physical sales, Walmart still leads the way, but it now only represents 14% of all music sales in the US.

NPD expected digital downloads to match physical sales by the end of 2010.

More:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/08/18/itunes.now.25p.of.us.music/

[drfsupercenter]

I still like CDs for their quality, though... I'll only buy single tracks if they're just one song or two I want, and not a whole CD.

What I want to see is a music store that sells lossless rips (whether WAV, FLAC, Apple Lossless, whatever)... I would definitely use that instead of CDs. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather rip my own lossless tracks then have pre-compressed ones...

[admin]

I think digital music should go beyond even CD quality lossless, and make high definition the standard. That's why digital is good because it's not restricted by a physical media and the constraints of it (like storage capacity).

[drfsupercenter]

Well, yeah... if they start making them higher than CD quality, sure.

But I mean, right now, the best you can get is 256kbps m4a, from iTunes Plus, and that's still not perfect compared to a CD. Hence why I still prefer ripping CDs, for the most part. (Unless it's just one song or something, I'll cave for that sort of thing)