Report: Number of Legal Music Download Service Users on Decline

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 12, 2004 - 3:40am.

Port Washington, N.Y. -- The number of consumers purchasing legal digital music downloads declined from a high of 1.3 million in April 2004 to around one million during the months of May, June and July, according to a report from New York-based market research firm NPD Group. The firm cited the end of free offers, discounts and other promotions offered by the various services selling digital music. NPD did not note a corresponding decline in the number of households using peer-to-peer file-sharing service to download free music, which totaled 5.1 million in August 2003 and 6.4 million in July 2004. Of the legitimate services, Apple's iTunes accounted for 70 of sales for the period of Dec. 2003 to July 2004, while Napster's share was 11% and Musicmatch, RealNetworks and Wal-Mart each sold 6% of total downloads.
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