Digital Music Sales Double….But!
the news isn’t all that rosy!
Some interesting data about digital music sales in 2006 to round off recent posts about iTunes lacklustre performance. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) have announced that Global digital music sales in 2006 almost doubled to around US$2bn and said digital sales could account for a quarter of all sales worldwide by 2010.
But the bad news for the labels is that the rise, which represents 10% of all sales, has not reached the music companies’ objective of offsetting the fall in CD sales.
The IFPI’s 2007 Digital Music Report said consumers last year downloaded 795 million tracks, up 89% on 2005, from almost 500 legitimate online music services available in 40 countries. The number of tracks available for download doubled to reach over four million on leading services. Despite this overall music sales were down 4% in the first half of 2006.
IFPI chairman John Kennedy said: “I would like to be announcing that a fall in CD sales is being compensated for by an equal or greater increase in online and mobile revenues. But that is not yet happening on a global basis.”
Unsurprisingly the IFPI said the 30,000 actions against illegal file-sharers globally had achieved some success against illegal file sharing but called for more action from ISP’s to stop ‘illegal’ sites being set up.
Here at Wise Buddha Towers we are just nipping off to renew our balance on allofmp3.com