World music market broadens as digital sales triple

The market for music downloads and other digital forms of music has tripled in a year, helping to offset a continuing decline in sales of CDs and other physical formats, according to the report.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimated that digital music sales totaled US$790 million in the first half of this year, compared to US$220 million in the same period a year earlier.

Recorded music sales fell 1.9 percent to a retail value of US$13.2 billion in the first half of 2005, compared to US$13.4 billion in the same period of 2004.

According to IFPI the digital boom was largely driven by sales in the top five markets - the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany and France, the AP reports.