Latest study by The NPD Group found that Apple's iTunes has managed to maintain its dominant position in legal online music market, by selling almost 70 percent of all tracks sold between December 2003 and July 2004. Napster cme as distant second, with 11 percent share of the market, followed by numerous smaller rivals, including MusicMatch and Real.
But more worryingly, an another study that focused on traffic that online music stores generated, by The Port Washington, found that online music store's total number of monthly visitors dropped from the peak month of April. In April, music stores gathered 1.3 million unique visitors, but managed to get only 1M users per month in May, June and July this year. Also, P2P traffic doesn't seem to drop at all, despite series of online music stores opened virtually on weekly basis and RIAA bombarding American P2P users constantly.
Source: Mac Observer
Source: Mac Observer