Digital music is 6% of industry sales

Filed in archive Industry on January 20, 2006

IFPI, the international music industry association issued its report for the state of digital music in 2005.

Key findings:
* There are 2 million songs online, double from last year
* Mobile music sales are over $400 million
* Total digital music sales were $1.1 billion, up from $380 million in 2004
* Total digital downloads were 420 million singles, 20 times the amount two years ago. It is unkonwn why they didn't compare it to the previous year.
* Digital music is 6% of record company sales.
* There are 335 legal download sites, up from 50 two years ago.
* Apple iTunes is now in 21 countries

On the P2P front:
* iMesh, the first authorized file sharing service, was launched
* Jupiter research says that 6% of internet users regularly download legally in the UK and Germany, compared to 5% who share files.
* Legal downloaders typically are first-time downloaders and are not converted file sharers. Only one in five legal music downloaders is also a file-swapper
* 50% of users who say they stop file sharing do so to avoid legal action. However that has had little effect as overall P2P use increases.