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Music CD Sales Still Dropping

New figures on U.S. music sales from Nielsen SoundScan show the music industry is still facing declining revenue, as sales of traditional music CDs declined 19.3 percent during the first half of 2007 to 205.7 million units. Digital music sales, however, continue to see strong growth, with digital music sales increasing 50 percent during the first half of 2007, compared to the first half of 2006. However, the revenue from growing digital sales isn’t enough to offset the losses from declining CD sales.

During the first half of 2007, SoundScan reports that U.S. consumers purchased 417.3 million digital music tracks. Sales of digital albums were also up 60 percent to 23.5 million units.

Handhelds Jolt U.S. Video Game Sales

A new survey from the NPD Group found that U.S. retail sales of console and portable video game systems, accessories, and games increased 21 percent during the first half of 2005, accounting for more than $4.1 billion in sales, compared to $3.4 billion in the first half of 2004.

Overall, the industry saw an 11 percent increase in unit sales during the first half of the year, despite a six percent decline in the sales of ever-aging console systems (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube) on the verge of being replaced with a new generation of systems. The net increase in sales was due to the strong popularity of portable gaming systems—such as Sony’s PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS—introduced during late 2004 and early 2005. Respondents also said they purchased larger screens for their console gaming, generally in the 40 to 46-inch range.

iTunes Phone Due In ‘first half of 2005′

“An Apple executive has revealed that the company is working on a cell phone capable of playing songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, due for release during the first half of 2005, in collaboration with long-term partner Motorola.

In an interview with Forbes, the company’s vice president for applications, Eddy Cue, said Motorola and Apple would “have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we’re definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you’ll be able to see more about it soon.” Although Cue declined to comment further on potential dates for the product, it has heightened speculation that the product will get its first public showing at January’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs is due to deliver his regular keynote speech.”

Samsung Supplies DirecTV With Set-Top Boxes

The shipments of more than 1 million units will be made in the latter half of this year. DirecTV holds a subscription base of 12 million persons with annual sales of US$2.3 billion.

Samsung began its set-top box businesses in 2001 and supplied Movie Beam, a product for the VoD services, to Disney in 2003.

This conflicts with earlier reports that Thompson will be suppling DirecTV with their own set-top boxes. Read that story here.

Broadband Adoption Slows

The number of U.S. residents connected to the Internet through broadband services increased by 18 percent during the first half of 2003, but that rate of growth slowed from the second half of 2002, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC’s latest data on the deployment of high-speed Internet connections, released Monday, finds the number of high-speed lines increased from 19.9 million to 23.5 million during the first six months of 2003. That 18 percent increase compared to a 23 percent increase during the last half of 2002. For the full year period ending June 30, 2003, high-speed lines increased by 45 percent.

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