In Digital Music Market iTunes Still No.1

According to Ipsos’ fifth annual TEMPO Digital Music Brandscape study iTunes is the No. 1 fee-based digital music venue. Apple’s music distribution service managed to hold on to its position despite Amazon’s success this year, and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody’s gains, Retailer Daily reports. The object of the study was tracking fee-based online music brands and consumer digital music behaviors. The survey revealed to Ipsos that awareness and use were steady among the most dominant brands this year.

While iTunes grew in terms of awareness, usage, familiarity, and “best brand” mentions, Amazon’s first year also proved strong. According to the study, initial awareness, usage, favorability and “best brand” ratings were comparable to any of the top brands following iTunes. In fact, the online music retailer managed to match iTunes’ user satisfaction level. Rhapsody gained in both aided and unaided awareness, usage and favorability, but not as much as iTunes and Amazon did, of course. For the rest of the brands, total awareness, familiarity, and favorability decreased – not by much, though!

The reason iTunes’ brand strength has not weakened in light of increasing competitive pressure is that, during this same time frame, consumers became more demanding of the digital music services they use. iTunes dominates this market, but that by no means suggests that there isn’t room for innovative competitors with differentiated offerings.