eMarketer: Singin' the Online Music Sale Blues
Seems those of us that claimed Napsterism wasn't hurting music sales were wrong.
According to a recent report from comScore Networks, US online music sales have dropped from $730 million during the first three quarters of 2001 to $545 million during the first three quarters of this year, representing a decline of 25%. Specifically between Q2 2002 and Q3 2002, online music sales slipped by $72 million.
comScore comments that while online music sales have been slipping, the number of users of popular music file-swapping sites has increased. comScore finds that the number of at- Kazaa users grew by roughly 7.84 million between Q3 2001 and Q3 2002. comScore also finds that the number of Morpheus users grew between Q2 2001 and Q2 2002 while Audiogalaxy's subscriber base grew to roughly 3.13 million by Q2 2002.
