Legal Downloads Beat Single Sales Sooner Than Expected!
Well it's finally happened, and much sooner than anyone would have anticipated. You only have to go back to 2003 when P2P were responsible for most of the downloading going on and in just one year with the introduction of a myriad of platforms ranging from mycokemusic to iTunes, the legal sector has come good, and come good quickly.
Last week 312,290 downloads were sold against 282,399 CD singles. ((6th January 2005)) Of all the singles in the Top 40, only Band Aid 20’s "Do They Know It’s Christmas?" and Steve Brookstein’s "Against All Odds" sold more than 25,000 physical copies. (Some 5.7 million tracks were sold through legal download services in 2004)
Incidentally the The BPI have jsut announced album sales were at an new all time high in 2004. UK retailers sold 163.4 million albums last year, a 2.6% increase on 2003's previous all-time high of 159.3 million, so good news for music all round.
Commenting on the figure, Ben Drury of 7 Digital Media, one of the main UK-based distributors of digital downloads, said: "This is a hugely significant milestone for the emerging download market and it has occurred much earlier than previously predicted." You can say that again! (that was me that said that)
Most industry predictions are that the physical CD will still be with us, its just another format and that's all there is to it.
Jeff Wild |
About Petrol Records
About Petrol Records
