Online CD sales falling fast

NEWS News today that Amazon.co.uk is to offer free delivery on some orders may be just the tonic needed to remedy falling sales of CDs online. There has been a 25 per cent decline in CDs sold on the web during the first nine months of 2002, according to researchers ComScore, a statistic which has caused some e-tailers and all record companies considerable concern. Online sales of CDs had previously risen fairly steadily, from 0.3 per cent of total sales being conducted via the web in 1997 to 2.9 per cent in 2001 - with a high in the heady dot-com days of 2000 of 3.2 per cent. The figure this year however looks set to be back around the two per cent mark. Phil Leigh, an analyst with Raymond James and Associates, told Reuters: "There's no point in buying a physical CD online when you can download one."