Apple’s launch of iTunes will end the future of CD album

05 March 2005

With Apple’s release of iTunes Internet music shop in Australia, it is predicted that the CD album will soon die and the pay-per-track downloading will eventually rise.

Today, the conventional process of recording ten to 12 songs in an album per year is already declining.

The latest technology has offered a more efficient way of recording and selling an album. Young song buyers nowadays are no longer interested in searching the artist’s album in a music store and they are more inclined in downloading music from the Internet. They can just choose the song files from the Internet and download them easily into their MP3 players.

Apple has released its iTunes Internet music store. Although there are already other pay-per-single music download services in the country, iTunes will surely be the leader in the market when it finally starts its operation.

Since the arrival of the digital video disc’s (DVDs), CD sales have started to decline. The sales of DVDs are already tying up with the sales of CDs in Australian stores. Today, majority of the space in music stores, particularly in San Francisco, Chicago and New Chicago are allotted to DVDs.

Apple has traded 250-million downloadable songs around the world to cater for its iPods. The company has not yet confirmed the exact date of its release, but according to the experts, the service will be launched soon.

Meanwhile, the sales of CD albums are continuously declining. According to the Australian Record Industry Association, the sales of CD albums have declined by 10% in the first half of 2004.