Talking of DRM-free, research company the NPD Group has said that the arrival of Amazon's digital rights management free MP3 download store in the US has had a positive impact on the wider digital music market. While the Amazon store - whose MP3s are iPod compatible, of course - is a serious competitor for iTunes, NPD say only 10% of Amazon's download customers had previously bought music from the Apple download service.
NPD analyst Russ Crupnick in a statement said in a statement this week: "The fact that Amazon's early growth does not appear to be at the expense of Apple iTunes is a healthy indication that the digital music customer pool can expand into new consumer groups who have not yet joined the iTunes community".
NPD reckon that Amazon is now the second place download seller in the US, though it stresses it's the second biggest "a la carte" digital download service, which presumably enables those who claim subscription based services like Rhapsody and eMusic are second in the US download market to continue to do so.
NPD also revealed that 84% of Amazon's download customers are male, compared to 44% of iTunes, which is perhaps surprising. Perhaps less surprisingly, only 3% of Amazon's downloaders were teens, compared to 18% of iTunes customers, a stat possibly down to the popularity of iTunes pre-pay gift cards as much as the Apple sevice's perceived trendiness among the trend conscious youth.