Woolworths to axe CD singles

High street chain Woolworths has announced it will stop selling CD singles from August this year.

Jim Batchelor, Woolworths commercial director, said: "Digital downloading is now the true customer choice for listening and purchasing single music tracks.

"CDs are alive and well for album sales, but unfortunately the physical singles market is in terminal decline."

But Woolworths will stock CD singles for one-off event releases, such as the X Factor winner, which still sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Industry figures show that sales of CD singles have fallen by a third this year compared with 2007 and the market is less than a sixth of the size it was eight years ago.

Eight million CD singles were bought in the UK last year, a fraction of the sales seen at the height of the physical single's popularity in 1999, when a record 78 million CD, tape and vinyl singles were sold.

Woolworths is the biggest seller of CD singles in the UK, but has already trimmed availability of the format to half of its 820 stores.

It is instead to focus on offering customers music tracks to download, with a revamped website covering music, games, video and mobile content.

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