Online music market shares: iTunes - 70%, Napster - 11%, Real, MusicMatch, WalMart - 6%

NPD said the number of consumers paying for downloads fell to nearly 1 mln users per month in May, June and July from a peak of 1.3 mln in April 2004. From December 2003 to July 2004, iTunes remained the dominant destination, commanding nearly 70% of music files downloaded legally, while Napster's share for that period was 11%. MusicMatch, RealNetworks and Wal-Mart each reached a 6% share. Meanwhile, NPD cited no slowdown in the number of households with a member using peer-to-peer (P2P) sites to download music for free, with 6.4 mln tallied in July 2004, compared with 5.1 mln in August 2003.