White Plains, N.Y. - Sales of digital music downloads so far in 2006 have grown 67% over last year, to 525 million downloads, already surpassing 2005 totals by over 170 million downloads, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan.

The year-over-year growth is not as pronounced as in 2005, when total track sales were 150% higher than in 2004. So far this year, sales of digital albums have reached 29.7 million, up more than 100% from last year's sales of 14.5 million albums.

In 2006 to date, 11 digital albums have sold more than 100,000 units, compared with only 3 in 2005 and none in 2004. For digital singles, 54 tracks have sold more than 500,000 units so far this year, compared with 22 tracks in 2005 and none in 2004.

"It is clear that digitally downloaded music is continuing to enjoy tremendous and growing consumer acceptance," said Nielsen Music president Rob Sisco.

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