While Apple's digital music competitors squabble over who is second place in the US download market after iTunes, the iPod maker is more interested in claiming the first place spot in the wider US music retail sector.
And according to New York based research firm NPD they've already done it - they reckon iTunes is now a bigger seller of music in the US than former market leader WalMart. A claim leading to Apple's VP iTunes saying: "We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world".
America's not the world, of course, and some even dispute the NPD claim because it was based on sample consumer interviews rather than comparable sales data. Still, the fact iTunes is being touted as number one in US music retail surely tells us something about the continued rapid growth of digital in the overall music market.
Of course, WalMart would never claim to be number one in the download market, and their digital music operation could be about to lose market share even more following reports that SonyBMG and Warner have removed large parts of their catalogue from the mega-retailers download store.
Digital Music News says it has heard rumours of a licensing dispute between the majors and the supermarket chain, and says that when they checked out a number of artists from the two majors on WalMart's website they found that many tracks were marked "not available for download".
DMN cite a source as saying the supermarket has fallen out with the record companies as a result of negotiations regarding licensing the two major's only recently available DRM-free MP3 catalogues, like those accessed and sold by Amazon.