Amazon Rising

MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE JUNGLE: Hot on the heels of this morning’s story on the Dept. of Justice investigating market leader iTunes’ alleged discouraging of labels from participating in Amazon’s $2.99 Daily Deal comes word the second-largest digital retailer is now tied with Walmart for second place among all retailers with 12% of all music sold, a rise of more than five percentage points from 2007, when it sold only 6.7%, before it began offering MP3s. NPD VP Russ Crupnick, who made the findings, suggested Amazon's potential lies in its ability to use digital to prop up physical CD sales. Turns out Amazon’s music downloads are growing at a faster rate than iTunes, too, though the Apple giant maintains an overwhelming 69%-8% gap in total digital music sales. (5/26p)