iTMS as popular as LimeWire


News.com reports that Apple's iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is among the most popular music download services online in March. The surprising bit here is that iTMS and LimeWire, an "illegal" service," share a second place rating.

Overall last month 1.7-million US households downloaded at least one song form Apple's industry-leading service. The No 1 illegal P2P service garnered 2.1-million downloads and, of course, it's a 'doze-only application.

This rise in overall popularity as measured by NPD Group is mirrored by statistics quoted by Steve Jobs during his WWDC keynote that iTMS now accounts for 82 percent of legal downloads--up some 10 percent since figures were last released.

Editor's note: Of course, Yahoo didn't release their cheap music service until last month. Nevertheless, this pundit fully expects Apple's share to remain above 75 percent and that the real damage caused with be to Real and Napster, which also run subscription-based services.

Let the cannibals have their fun...

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