CEA Presents Results Of Consumer Survey On Digital Downloading
By Staff -- TWICE, 11/4/2002
San Francisco— CD sales are lagging and record companies are quick to blame digital downloading through peer-to-peer file sharing networks, like KaZaa, and CE products likes CD-R and DVD-R decks, for their doldrums. But how much downloading is actually going on? And is it really the primary cause of soft music sales?
These questions and others are tackled in a recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), titled Digital Downloads: Fact and Fiction.
Results of the survey, which was administered online to 1,067 adults, sketch out a picture of how many consumers are downloading and sharing digital music files, what impact downloading has on purchasing habits, and whether consumers understand what constitutes piracy and what is fair use.
Sean Wargo, CEA director of industry analysis, presented the results at last month's CEA Industry Forum and Fall Conference, at the Fairmount Hotel, here. The charts on this page tell the story.
| Online population | 125.1 million (60%) |
| Total downloaders | 103.8 million (45%) |
| Online, under 18 | 41.7 million (15%) |
| Not online | 111.2 million (40%) |
| Downloaders of music | 44.5 million (16%) |
| 30-day average downloads | 9 |
| Total downloads | 400.5 million per month |
| Yearly estimate | 4.8 billion |
| Number regularly copying to CD | 13.3 million |
| Number sharing with friends | 7.6 million |
| Source: CEA ©TWICE 2002 |
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