iTunes Moves Up Notch
Wal-Mart is still tops in music sales but Apple has rolled into second, with Best Buy and Target close behind.
From the SF Chronicle:
Apple said it has sold more than four billion songs to 50 million iTunes Store customers. It added that on Christmas day alone it sold 20 million songs.Apple had been ranked No. 4 during the fourth quarter of 2006, but it leapfrogged Best Buy and Target to the No. 2 spot in 2007, according to NPD [Group, a market research firm].
Legal downloads, apparently, are on the rise:
Separately, NPD said that 29 million consumers downloaded music legally last year, an increase of 5 million from last year, and that legal music downloads now account for 10 percent of overall music acquired in the United States.
CDs? Consumers reaction seems to be "Meh," according to an AP summary of the NPD data:
Meanwhile, an estimated 1 million consumers did not buy CDs in 2007, and 48 percent of U.S. teenagers didn't buy any CDs during the year, up from 38 percent in the year before, according to NPD data.
