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iTunes share of the US music market swells to 26.7%

Apple's iTunes music service has strengthened its lead in the US music market, growing to a whopping 26.7% of all music sold in the States, up from 21% a few years ago and 12% in 2007. That's pretty phenomenal growth, buoyed almost certainly by the rising share of digital music versus brick and mortar stores. Digital purchases make up 35.5% of music bought here, also up from 31% the last time Billboard released stats.

So where are all of these music purchases coming from? Best Buy and Walmart, apparently -- both retail outlets saw their shares drop by a few percentage points recently. And of course these are all percentages. I'd bet that lower music sales overall combined with growing sales on iTunes is helping to grow Apple's share quite a bit. At any rate, while hardware sales are getting the press, let's not forget that iTunes is still a big earner for Apple.

[via Macsimum News]