The latest research released by Nielsen, a market research firm, in Friday, shows

According to foreign media reports, a new study published by Nielsen, a market research firm, released in Friday, shows that the streaming music industry has begun to take off, with more than 50 billion songs playing in the first half of the year, up 24% from a year earlier. Apple launched the itunes Radio service with iOS 71 to catch a fast-growing flight from streaming music.

The latest figures released in Friday by Nielsen Music Statistics, a survey of sales of audio and video products in the U.S. record market, show consumer interest in streaming media services such as Spotify and Apple's upcoming itunes Radio SoundScan. Streaming music service songs in the first half of this year's playback volume rose 24%.

In an effort to adapt to the fast-growing streaming music market, Apple recently announced that it will launch its itunes Radio service. The service can be obtained from Mac, PC, Apple TV and iOS devices, and the service can see the personalized music platform offered by Apple to break the user's listening habits. The company will offer ad support and non advertising support in two ways. Entering the growing music industry will give Apple more control over the music industry. Some expect itunes to occupy a 63% share of the digital music market, compared with an estimated 75% per cent.

Although it has some natural advantages of being preinstalled on every device that carries iOS 7, the market for itunes Radio enters is fiercely competitive. In addition to Apple's products, music consumers are also receptive to streaming media services from Pandora and Spotify, and other services such as Google Music and Microsoft's Xbox music are available to consumers to choose from. Apple's entry into the Internet music business has been resisted by various companies in the music industry, which fear that Apple has more clout, and that Apple has a huge cash hoard, and they want their content to be licensed and royalties from Apple. Apple finally made progress before the service was released and signed a partnership agreement with major companies in the industry at the annual Global developer conference.

In addition to streaming media, Nielsen reported a slight decline in music sales in the first half of the year, with record and track sales falling 4.6% per cent year-on-year, mainly because the largest physical media CD sales fell 14.2% per cent year-on-year. Sales of digital tracks fell 2.3%, but sales of digital albums actually grew by 6.3%. Nielsen found that the digital album now occupies 43% of all albums sold, compared with only 38% in the same period last year.

Nielsen's data also showed that music industry sales in the first half of the year fell 4.6% from a year earlier, in part because of a decline in physical media music sales. Digital single sales fell 2.3%, but digital record sales grew 6.3%. Nielsen found that the share of digital records in the first half of the year rose to 43% from 38% a year earlier.