Survey: Consumers Prefer CDs To MP3s
- by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, December 1, 2004
A scant 5 percent of 2,300 online adults surveyed said they had ever paid to download individual songs, according to JupiterResearch Analyst David Card. The vast majority of those surveyed weren't much inclined to do so in the future, either. Only 16 percent of adults said they were interested in paying for individual song downloads. Teens ages 13 to 17 appeared even less enthusiastic, with a mere 14 percent of 2,100 teenagers surveyed reporting they were interested in purchasing singles online.
A higher proportion of survey respondents--12 percent--admitted to having downloaded music for free, while 8 percent owned up to file-sharing. Those numbers might be underestimates, said Card, because survey respondents might have been reluctant to admit to file-sharing.
Despite the relatively cheap price of per-song downloads, the majority of adults--51 percent--said they think it's preferable to possess something tangible, such as a CD, than digital songs.
For one thing, said Card, once people own CDs, they can easily transfer the music to a computer or an MP3. "You can rip a CD and get all of the digital benefits," said Card. What's more, CDs are usually higher-quality than digital downloads, because CDs have more storage space. In addition, consumers prize the knowledge that a CD will be theirs forever, as well as the ability to listen to CDs when and as often as they want, and to copy them.
The survey results are in keeping with a JupiterResearch report earlier this year forecasting that by 2009, digital music sales will represent only 12 percent of consumer music spending, said Card.
JupiterResearch also found that consumers are more interested in digital subscription services than paying per download. Among adults, 17 percent expressed an interest in online subscriptions, while 19 percent of teens did so. Among adults between the ages of 18 and 24, 31 percent reported being interested in subscriptions.
