Digital Music Sales Decreased in 2013

For the first time since iTunes Store launch in 2003, digital music sales have decreased in 2013. Industry analysts say that the reason for such drop in sales is closely connected with streaming music services - Pandora, iTunes Radio and the others. People prefer listening to their favourite tracks and albums online rather than purchasing and downloading them to their devices.

As noted by Billboard,

Overall for the full year 2013, digital track sales fell 5.7% from 1.34 billion units to 1.26 billion units while digital album sales fell 0.1% to 117.6 million units from the previous year’s total of 117.7 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Taking into account the increasing popularity of the streaming music services, I can say that in future digital music sales will only fall unless the guys from Cupertino come up with a new marketing strategy or something like that.