Vinyl, Cassettes & Retail

US Digital Music Will Climb To 41% Of Sales In 5 Yrs

A new study by JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research company, predicts that digital music will grow from the current 18% to 41% of total sales in 5 years. Researchers credited stores like Amazon and the transition to mp3’s which make downloads portable for some of the increase.

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The "U.S. Music Forecast 2008 to 2013" predicts that growth in digital music sales will not compensate for declining CD sales, with the U.S. music market shrinking over the next five years from $10.2 billion to $9.8 billion.

64% of subscribers to digital music services and 57% of those who download music also bought a CD in a store within the last year. Regular digital music consumers have shifted 60% of their music spending to digital. The study predicts that music on cell phones will only contribute 3% to overall sales or $300 million by 2013.

ANALYSIS: While the CD will continue to hang on, most..

major labels are already approaching 30% of revenue from digital. Last
week Atlantic claimed that 50% of its revenue already come from
digital.  While some have disputed that projection, it seems that
JupiterResearch has erred too far in the other direction.  If digital does not
account for 50% or even 60% of total sales by 2013, it will only be
because the industry has continued to build roadblocks to its own
success.

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2 Comments

  1. StartMySong…..You are right…No one is talking about that!!?!?!?
    Hype Boties…forget you are in the music industry and think retail manufacturing 101…
    If you were a retail manufacturer and the news broke that there was a way to get your product to people without the cost or trouble of ANY physical manufacture…AND that there was a potential for product interactivity, quality enhancement AND no more shipping/consumer travel costs…all your problems would be solved and you’d HAVE to do it, a business upgrade. You’d jump at the chance.
    Yet music downloads are stuck in the MP3 AAC DRM dark age, left behind by their far more expensive and quality focused cousins, movies and TV. Draconian baby boomer fascists at the RIAA n’ Majors are trying their best to kill anyone who likes music and enslave their children’s children….And wonderful art is dying alone and unheard in the cracks between (Insert Multi National Media Conglomerate Here) and consumer fatigue.
    STOP MAKING / SELLING CD’s!!!!!!! They are dirty, expensive and they sound like shit at 44.1 16 bit…..Get on with DSD analog downloads…They CAN HAPPEN! We have the technology: superaudicenter.com
    STOP SIGNING DEALS!!!!!!!!! Use Tunecore.com
    If it sounds good and it’s vital in it’s representation of youth culture people will buy it again. And this time they won’t even have to leave home.
    Much No Physical Future,
    brendan b brown
    wheatus

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