One of the world's most commercial record labels has today given the digital downloads market a friendly jolt by announcing that the surge in demand will account for a 12% rise in its annual profit for 2006.
Regardless of this digital music sales still only account for 5.5% of the labels annual revenue, which translates to £110million-plus in DRM gold-nuggets.
EMI confessed: "This strong divisional performance reflects successful releases from a broad range of artists including international superstars Coldplay, Gorillaz, Robbie Williams and The Rolling Stones."
Despite the UK's number one chart position recently being occupied for the very first time by a download-only single (Crazy by Gnarls Barkley) it seems digital music sales are still failing to have much of an impact on the music world.
The question over whether this is because of unwanted DRM, illegal filesharing or the public preferring physical to digital remains unanswered - though it's probably a combination of the three.
