So far in 2009 each month has registered at least 1.5 million music downloads, with April and May 09 each up 21 per cent up year on year.

However, the GfK also notes that 31 per cent (in May 09) of downloads were via a subscription service. As the value of each track is in theory 'free' (but GfK allocates a nominal fee of 10p) the value is growing at a slower rate than the volume, although May also reached an all time high in value terms of £2.36 million

Subscriptions are also encouraging ‘search and discovery’ as over 70,000 titles were downloaded just once in the month of May.