BAASnotes.com – Bay Area Audiophile Society

Yikes! iPod sales down and music follows

As reported in theAge, iPod sales have been on the decline. This is known.

But did you know that sales if (compressed) music downloads parallel that trend?

It turns out that this is no small matter:

The music industry had looked to the iPod to drive people to buy music in download form, whether from Apple’s iTunes music store or from newer competitors such as Amazon. The problem for them is that digital music sales are only growing as fast as those of Apple’s devices.

”At a time where we’re asking if digital is a replacement for the CD, as the CD was for vinyl, we should be starting to see a hockey-stick growth in download sales,” says Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester Research who specialises in music and digital media.

”Instead, we’re seeing a curve resembling that of a niche technology.”

Can Apple’s announcement this week reverse the trend?

Is high-end affected? How?