iTunes downloads grow cheaper, kinda

 iTunes offers music at inflation-busting prices, it seems, with the 99-cents per track price remaining static since the service launched in 2003.

Now, we’re not saying prices should go up – but we are interested in a recent Digital Audio Insider analysis of the inflation-adjusted price of a download through the service, which reveals that should prices have kept up with inflation, songs would now cost $1.14. And by 2012 songs will cost the equivalent of 74-cents a track, assuming prices remain static.

That download prices have remained static isn’t so remarkable when you consider the continuously falling price of CDs.

However, it’s clear that Apple will be under increasing pressure on the part of the music labels to raise its prices, even if it resists the call for price flexibility. Though the company has frequently warned that raising music prices at this stage of the evolution of the digital music industry could still drive consumers to the cheapest music prices available anywhere – the file-sharing networks.