New research suggests digital download services are genuinely growing in popularity among music fans - and that rise may well soon be hitting traditional music retailers hard. Research firm TNS survey the entertainment spending habits of 10,000 consumers across the UK. They reckon the number of people downloading music, and buying CD by internet mail order sites, has increased greatly in the last year. Perhaps more importantly, the web savvy music buyers are spending less than half the amount of money they would have done previously in high street record shops like HMV and Virgin Megastore. While TNS admit the downloading community is still relatively small compared to the overall music market (they reckon around 300,000 consumers were legally downloading music this summer), they say the ever increasing sales of digital music players - especially in the run up to Christmas - should see that community expand rapidly in the coming years, and that will soon impact on the traditional retailers.
Commenting on the latest research, TNS's Ian Waymark told reporters: "Downloading is driving a revolution in people's relationship with music. Consumers are paying attention to the benefits such as convenience, choice and cost savings. Whilst traditional music retailers still hold the vast majority of the market, the rapid growth of downloading cannot be ignored. As downloading popularity increases, traditional retailers will have to find new ways of tempting customers to keep spending with them".