"Revenue Opportunities Abound In Online and Mobile Music Distribution"

Last year, digital sales accounted for 10% of all music purchases, up from 6% in 2006. According to In-Stat's research titled "Revenue Opportunities Abound In Online and Mobile Music Distribution," digital music purchases will keep growing and within 4 years, they will account for 40% of overall music sales.

In-Stat points out two key factors that will drive the growth: global expansion of broadband availability, and growth of full-track downloads to mobile handsets in markets other than Japan. As for the obstacles, the research company argues it's the digital piracy, lack of interoperability between services and devices, and weak consumer demand for subscription-based services.

Here are a few nuggets from In-Stat's latest research findings:

* Dollar sales of online digital music increased 48 percent between 2006 and 2007 to reach $3.05 billion last year

* Digital sales are expected to account for 40 percent of all music purchases worldwide by 2012, up from just 10 percent in 2007 and six percent in 2006

* Revenue for worldwide full track mobile downloads will reach approximately $4.2 billion by 2012

* The majority of respondents who accessed online video (72.3%) in 2007 did not pay for the video they saw from the Internet

More information is available on In-Stat's website.