Digital music stalls

iPod owners in Europe are more likely to buy digital music than owners of other music devices; however, only one in five owners regularly buys songs online. About 83 percent of European iPod owners do no regularly buy digital music, according to new research from Jupiter Research cited by Reuters. Europe's digital music market is expected to double to 385 million euros ($487.1 million) in 2006 from a year ago. Despite the almost 200 million songs sold in Europe to-date, iPod owners on average buy only 20 tracks a year from Apple's iTunes store: "The model isn't broken, there's just lots of room for improvement," Jupiter analyst Mark Mulligan told the publication. "Digital music is really underperforming its potential." In addition, the study found that 30 percent of iPod owners illegally swap songs using file-sharing networks and another 23 percent listen to Web-based audio files for free legally. Jupiter surveyed 4,000 consumers across Europe and found iPod owners much more likely to buy CDs online than they were to buy downloads.

by MacNN Staff