After more than a decade of constant decline, music industry executives finally have reasons to celebrate. According to the latest Nielsen Soundscan survey, US music sales are up 1.6 percent due to strong digital sales. More precisely, sales of digital tracks rose a notable 16.8 percent while sales of individual tracks upped a healthy 9.6 percent.
Physical albums, however, remain on a downward spiral with an 8.3 percent decline while CD sales declined 8.8 percent overall. Interestingly, the research firm cited the arrival of Beatles on iTunes for the rebound in digital music sales.
The digital space should also benefit from Apple’s rumored entrance into the cloud locker market, giving cloud music service the much-needed legitimacy.
The music industry is reportedly turning to Apple in the hope of forcing competitors into paying royalties for allowing users to store digital files in the cloud.
- Boom, Google’s iTunes killer goes live (9to5mac.com)
- Apple music locker “ready to go” as iTunes chief signs deals with labels (9to5mac.com)
- Apple negotiating unlimited song downloads/permanent music backups for iTunes? (9to5mac.com)
- New MobileMe includes music locker, costs $20 per year? (9to5mac.com)
- Did Apple cut owners of decade old G3 Macs out of the iTunes Store? (9to5mac.com)
