Apple iTunes takes big lead in domestic music market share AllNewsMac (press release)
According to a survey conducted by Billboard, iTunes takes a big lead in domestic music market. Based on interviews with distributors representing roughly 90% of the total market, iTunes took a domestic market share of 26.65%. Last year iTunes had 21.42% on the same market. The combined efforts of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and mobile content provider Zed accounted for 4.9% of sales, down from 6.6%. This percent includes ringtones as well. Apple’s introduction of lower priced ringtones and free tools within iTunes that enable users to create their own ringtones may likely have played a part in stalling the growth of the $2-$3 per ringtone business being pushed by mobile providers. Amazon and RealNetworks gained share — to 7.07% and 1.23%, respectively — but have a long way to go to catch Apple. MediaNet, which serves Microsoft’s Zune and others, is practically a round-off error, with 0.55% of the market, down from 0.66%. Songs streamed directly to cellphones, once touted as the next big thing in digital music, failed to take off and is now rapidly losing ground to Apple’s iTunes Store.
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