Solutions Research Group on Thursday announced the results of a study of the digital music market that reveals a few interesting trends, including gender trends, Apple’s continued dominance and the rise of legitimate music downloads.
According to Solutions Research Group, ownership of digital music players has more than tripled from 2005 to 2006, from 8 percent in 2005 to 27 percent in 2006. Among men, it’s jumped as well — from 18 percent to 28 percent. The number of female downloaders of paid music services increased proportionally, as well. The study shows that those aged 30 to 49 years old showed the biggest year over year growth in iPod ownership — from 12 percent to 33 percent.
Nearly half of all Americans — 45 percent — downloaded music from pay sites or peer to peer sources, up from 31 percent. And those who paid for a song increased dramatically — from 8 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2006.
No surprise — Apple continues to dominate the digital music player space. Solutions Research Group said that Apple increased its overall marketshare of all digital music players from 53 percent to 68 percent. Creative Labs is in second place with about 6 percent of the market. RCA, Samsung and Sony each register about two to three percent share.