On the upside for the music business, a new report from Verdict Research reckons the download market will continue to grow, grow, grow in the next few years, so that it is worth around £468 million a year by 2011, compared with £112 million right now. The report also says video downloading will take off proper in the coming years, and that video sales should account for a third of the download market by 2011.
Commenting on the report, Verdict's Senior Retail Analyst Alastair Lockhard says: "Over the past year digital downloading has really started to capture the imagination of customers. The increasing availability of high speed internet access is encouraging more consumers to experiment, downloading songs to their MP3 players using the ever increasing number of new site becoming available. Looking ahead, as well as continued growth of music downloads, Verdict forecasts significant growth in video downloading."