US digital music files sales to surpass CD sales in 2012

Strategy Analytics has made an interesting prediction about the sales of digital music files in the US. According to their latest reports, sales of digital music files in the US will overtake CD sales for the very first time next year. Sales of CDs have slowly been declining over the years, while sales of digital music files have been climbing. The fact that single track downloads are expected to dominate the online music market, shows the new trend towards how consumers want to experience music. Often, people only want one or two songs from an artiste, and the current $1/track model offered by most companies serves their purposes very well.

This could have been one of the reasons that CD sales have been suffering since people have the option to purchase singles instead of the whole album. Having instantaneous access to purchased music is another advantage of the digital medium – waiting for a physical CD to arrive in the mail or standing in line for a CD that you’re going to rip to MP3 to play on your iPod seems redundant when you can directly download the album in the MP3 format. The benefits of digital media outweigh traditional mediums by a long shot, and traditional CDs are definitely going to die out in the near future. Let’s not forget how digital is better for the environment as well. How many of you have stopped purchasing CDs and made the transition to digital music?

[image credit: classicvinylrecord]

George Wong
Categories: Audio
Tags: digital, mp3, Music, prediction, sales