According to Nielsen Soundscan, there were 581 million downloads in 2006 for a growth rate of 54 percent over last year, less than the previous year's growth rate of 163 percent. Market share leader Apple has sold two billion downloads in four years.

We covered this a year ago when weekly year to year growth rates were lower than the previous year. The year end numbers confirm this trend. We wrote then, as now, that the explosion in paid downloads is over. Growth will continue to decline as the digital market reaches maturity, unless the major labels open up licensing