Woolworths to stop selling CD singles from August
Tuesday, 27 May 2008 11:05
Woolworths announces plans to stop selling CD singles
Music fans will no longer be able to buy their favourite CD singles from Woolworths after the high street store announced plans to stop selling the format.
With the rise of digital downloading, sales figures for CD singles have dropped dramatically in recent years.
And while the chain will continue to sell popular one-off releases, such as the sure-fire hit debut single of the winner of The X Factor, regular singles will no longer fill the shelves.
With music lovers able to purchase an MP3 of a particular song for less than £1 from download stores such as iTunes, sales of CD singles have fallen dramatically in the 21st century.
While a staggering 78 million CD, tape and vinyl singles were sold in the UK in 1999, only eight million CD singles were bought in 2007.
This year's sales are a third the size of last year's and the CD singles market is believed to be less than a sixth of the size it was eight years ago.
And according to Jim Batchelor, Woolworths commercial director, the company plans to grab its own share of the digital market, with new site woolworthsdownload.co.uk, offering music, games, video and mobile content.
"Digital downloading is now the true customer choice for listening and purchasing single music tracks.
"CDs are alive and well for album sales, but unfortunately the physical singles market is in terminal decline."