Digital music sales top $1 billion

Digital music sales have broken the $1 billion barrier, and Apple's iTunes Music Store is still leading the way. Apple sold 14,043,000 iPods during its last quarter alone, while the iTunes Music Store accounted for 83 percent of legally downloaded music in the month of December. The IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) said digital music sales tripled to $1.1 billion from $380 million in 2004, and predicted "further significant growth" this year, according to a report from the Financial Times. Music lovers legally downloaded 420 million tracks in 2005--20 times more than two years ago--even as music licensed by record companies doubled to more than two million songs. Digital music now accounts for roughly 6 percent of record companies' revenues. iTunes currently reaches 90 percent of the global music market and has sold 850 million songs and 8 million videos to date.

Filed under: industry
Other story tags: digital music/video