One in 10 adults in the Republic now owns a digital music player, prompting an explosion in the downloading of music from the internet, a survey shows.
The popularity of digital music players is also leading to a decline in CD sales, particularly among young people, according to a briefing report published today by Millward Brown IMS.
As a result of getting a digital music player, 41 per cent of owners say they are buying CDs less often. Just 3 per cent say they are buying more CDs while 47 per cent say the amount that they purchase remains unchanged.
Just over half of the 349,000 people with digital music players are downloading music from the web at least once a month and 44 per cent of respondents say they are likely to start, says the report.
Only a third of respondents said they paid for downloaded music from official music sites while 63 per cent said they used free sites, including file-sharing music networks such as KaZaA.
The report says that rising residential broadband penetration is likely to increase the frequency and volume of internet music downloads because it is so much quicker to download music using broadband rather than dial-up.
About half the respondents to the survey who own a digital music player say that, in the future, all their music will be digitally held and they will have no need for CDs. The report concludes that, given that this segment of the market is likely to have a higher than average interest in music, the CD industry will be hit doubly hard.
However, the death of the CD may still be some way off as 61 per cent of respondents to the survey say there will always be a certain amount of CDs that they will want to buy.
However, more than half of the respondents said they would prefer to purchase an album as a digital file than pay more of a CD.
The survey was conducted in February and March among a sample of 1,202 people aged 15 and over. It is published at a time when the Irish music industry is about to take legal action against illegal uploaders of music (people who share music files on the internet). The first lawsuits against individuals are expected shortly.
