One third of music sales digital by 2011

Downloads to PCs and mobile phones will make up 36 per cent of European music sales by 2011

The legal music download market in Europe will be worth €3.9bn by 2011, according to new data from Forrester Research. 

While physical music sales will decline by nearly 30 per cent in value between 2005 and 2011, music downloads to PCs and mobile phones will support an overall market recovery by making up 36 per cent of total European music sales.

Forrester predicts that, while the physical music market declines from €9.1bn in 2006 to €7bn in 2011, music downloads will increase by an average of 74 per cent per year to drive the overall music market up to almost €11bn.

"At present, legal downloads to PCs and mobile phones account for less than two per cent of the value of the European music market," said Rebecca Jennings, senior analyst at Forrester. 

"However, the market has seen significant trends over the past year, including an explosion in the value and volume of legal downloads, with downloads to mobile phones becoming increasingly prevalent in Europe and Asia."

Analyst firm In-Stat reported similar findings last week, predicting that the market would reach $10.7bn in 2010 and that mobile phones would become an important channel for digital music.

Forrester said that the UK, France and Germany currently dominate the European music download market, making up 80 per cent of legal music downloads to PCs.

However, the market has a long way to go before mobile phones are the gadget of choice for downloading songs. Forrester predicted that just €700m of the €11bn made from music in 2011 will come from mobile phone downloads.