14 DAY TRIAL // A survey conducted by NPD Group came up with a surprising conclusion: iTunes is as popular as some peer-to-peer downloading services.
Actually, the most popular digital music service in March was, according to NPD Group, WinMX, which was used by 2.1 million households to download music.
On the second place, with 1.7 million households, were Limewire and iTunes. "One of the music industry's questions has been, when will paid download stores compete head-to-head with free P2P download services?" Russ Crupnick, president of the NPD Group's music and movies division, said in a statement. "That question has now been answered. iTunes is more popular than nearly any P2P service."
Actually, iTunes is ranked in the Top 10 of digital music services ahead of Kazaa and iMesh, by NPD Group.
Napster came in at No. 7 and the Real Player store, now part of Real's Rhapsody service at No. 9 behind P2Ps including Kazaa and BearShare. Napster and Rhapsody's "all you can eat" subscription plans were not included in the rankings.
So, it looks like iTunes is becoming more popular than the illegal downloads. What a good news for RIAA and music industry!