Battle of the Bands: iTunes knocks FNAC out!

The French retailer of digital music, FNAC, will now use Apple’s storefront, iTunes. After 8 years of plans to compete in a rapidly evolving digital landscape, FNAC will finally close its doors ‘online.’ FNAC will bring in the new year on January 1, 2013 transferring all it users’ credits to iTunes accounts under a terms of agreement with Apple. Apparently their peak was back in 2011 with 3.8% of the market share, lagging behind leaders, Amazon MP3, Music Orange, VirginMega, and iTunes.
Their futile efforts included competing with VirginMega’s release of MP3s sans DRM, and offering bargains on independent artists’ albums.
According to the Rolling Stone, the top three genres of music online sales can be ranked with Pop on top, Rock & Roll, and finally R&B. Last year marked the first time in history where online music sales surpassed physical sales. The big winners that year were none other than Adele who sold 1,801,000 digital albums, and over 9.5 million downloads of hit singles, Lady Gaga, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z, and Kanye West, Lil’ Wayne, and Coldplay.