ITunes outsells high street music retailers

600 million songs, 10 million subscribers, 30 million iPods

Apple's iTunes music download service is outselling some high street record chains for the first time.

The site is now selling more music than Tower Records or Borders, according to research firm NPD Group, which tracks downloads from digital music stores, as well as people's offline buying behaviour.

During the past three months, iTunes made it into the US top 10 sales list for the first time, NPD said.

Apple claims to have sold more than 600 million songs to its 10 million subscribers, and has sold 30 million iPods since launching the device in 2001.

According to figures from the Recording Industry Association of America, digital sales accounted for four per cent of the market during the first half of 2005, up from about 1.5 per cent during the first half of 2004.

However Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Amazon, FYE and Circuit City all scored higher than iTunes, according to the research.

In other news, domain name registrar Nominet has announced that Ben Cohen, former teenaged dotcom millionaire, has relinquished his fight to regain the itunes.co.uk domain.

Nominet company solicitor Edward Phillips said that Cohen's company, CyberBritain Group, has abandoned all further attempts to get the domain it once owned back from Apple.

• The wise man's guide to Christmas shopping