iTunes Becomes #1 Music Retailer

The iTunes Store became the U.S.' top music retailer in January, according to a press release from Apple. Note that that's not the top online music retailer, that's the top seller of music anywhere. This is big news for Apple, e-commerce, and digital music.

It held the top spot in February as well, the most recent month for which data was available.

The research, done by NPD, shows that Apple's marketshare was 19% in January, with Wal-Mart coming in second at 15%, Best Buy at 13%, and Amazon fourth at 6%.

In the five years the iTunes Store has been online, it has sold over 4 billion songs.

The news comes only months after Apple's ascension to the #2 spot and just days after it was announced the Apple is also (not surprisingly) the leading digital music download retailer, followed by Amazon.