Mac users more than three times as likely to buy music as PC users

Today's NPD survey reveals a lot of useful music industry information. Some of results:

• 50% of Mac users buy music online. 16% of PC users do.
• Apple's share of the personal computer industry went from 6% in 2006 to 9% in 2007 according to NPD's "consumer panel data" (does this exclude enterprise business?)
• More than 32 percent of Mac users report purchasing CDs in the third quarter of 2007, compared to just 28 percent of PC users
• More than twice as many (34 percent) of Mac users had uploaded music to their MP3 players (16 percent of PC users)

It seems very apparent that the growing Mac platform users are much more advanced in terms of media manipulation on their computers. This advanced level of sophistication isn't just good for Apple and its customers. It is also good for the Record Lablels who have much better customers when people buy Macs.

I really hope the Recording industry is listening. The Apple platform represents a brighter future for them. If PC users were snapping up music like their Mac brethren, there would be a whole lot more money in the record label's pockets.

"There's still a cultural divide between Apple consumers and the rest of the computing world, and that's especially apparent when it comes to the way they interact with music," according to Russ Crupnick, vice president and entertainment industry analyst, The NPD Group. "Mac users are not only more active in digital music, they are also more likely to buy CDs, which helps debunk the myth that digital music consumers stop buying music in CD format."