The percentage of internet users who bought a CD in Q3 fell to 22% from 25% last year, according to an online survey by market researcher NPD. Oddly enough, that's still better than the 15% of web users who paid for a music download last quarter. Both figures show why overall demand for music by internet users was down 2% in Q3.
• Online grows, albeit slowly: To be fair, online is at least still growing, while physical purchases are still tanking. The slightly wider use of online music stores like iTunes and Amazon's provided a small boost to the category over last year In Q307, 13% of the internet population bought music from a download store, meaning a 2% increase in the growth rate. In general legal music download volumes grew by 29% in Q3.
Darwin was right about media players! Photograph: Neeku/Flickr/Some rights reserved
• P2P still a favorite: The number of internet users sharing music on P2P sites held steady at 14% in Q3. However the volume of music shared via P2P sites grew by 23%, as P2P users reported downloading more files. Teens purchased 34% more paid digital downloads compared with year-ago. The growth in P2P file downloading was acute among 13- to 17-year-olds- up 46%. NPD pointed out that sharing files by burning music to a CD fell 25% among teens, suggesting that physical discs hold little appeal even when it's being given away for free.
• Thanks to Rock Band: NPD's survey of 4,400 online users in Q3 also found that 22% of music buyers (including CDs, digital or mobile) overall played a music-related video game, such as Rock Band or Guitar Hero, indicating that video gaming may be the one hope for the music to try to make some money from a deeply troubled business. Release
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