THIS will be the year that digital music sales trump the sale of music recorded on physical media like CDs and tapes in the Asia Pacific region, according to digital music store Soundbuzz in a release issued last week.

And as the rest of the world buys more digital music - primarily music downloaded onto computers and mobile phones - the company believes that the global music market will see digital music sales overtaking sales of its physical media counterparts by 2009.

Singapore however, is currently not following the regional trend, said Soundbuzz's chief executive Sudhanshu Sarronwala. He does not expect digital music sales here to outsell physical music this year or in 2008.

Soundbuzz's analysis is based on data from PricewaterhouseCoopers' Media and Entertainment Outlook report, figures provided in reports by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI), as well as its own sales data.

In the region, the growth in digital music is largely fuelled by the growth in mobile music sales, which is expected to grow from US$2.89 billion to US$8.57 billion by 2009.

Mobile music includes ringtones, mastertones (ringtones that include a portion of an actual music track), ringback tones, caller tones, and full tracks delivered across the mobile network to a mobile phone.

Regional online music sales, which is defined as music downloads via a computer, is expected to grow to US$780 million by 2009.

Digital music, which encompasses both mobile music and online music sales, is forecast to account for some 81 per cent of the total music retail market in the Asia Pacific region, which is estimated to be worth US$11.57 billion in 2009.

Globally, some 61 per cent of the total music retail market estimated to be worth US$45.9 billion by 2009, will be from digital music sales.

Mr Sarronwala predicted that India will be the second country in the world, after South Korea, where digital music sales will surpass that of physical music.

A recent report from IFPI, which represents some 1,400 record companies across 70 countries, also reaffirmed the growth in digital music sales in 2006.

Global digital music sales was estimated to have doubled to about US$2 billion in 2006.

In a similar report last year, the IFPI said that global digital music sales in 2005 reached US$1.1 billion.

Digital music also grew to account for about 10 per cent of the total music market, up from 5.5 per cent in 2005.

Based on these figures, the overall music market is estimated to have stagnated at about US$20 billion for both 2005 and 2006.

The report also said that mobile music accounted for about half of global digital music revenues in 2006, but noted that this split between mobile and online varied sharply by country.

The number of tracks available online also doubled to reach over four million last year.

In the report, John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive officer of IFPI said: 'I would like to be announcing that a fall in CD sales is being compensated by an equal or greater increase in online and mobile revenues. But that is not happening yet.'

This article first appeared in BT on January 22, 2007