I've always wondered this, it's quite clear iTunes is the massive leader when it comes to singles. But does anyone know the percentage of the market share for albums look like?

I presumed HMV, Play & Amazon would come on top followed by Tesco and iTunes... then other supermarkets and online mp3 stores. But I could be way off. Does anyone know for sure and have any idea of the percentages... on average?

I'm pretty sure iTunes is the market leader for albums, it's an absolute behemoth for singles but albums on iTunes are normally quite reasonably priced as well. Plus anything that isn't chart music has to be bought online unless you're prepared to pay a stupid amount in HMV, and iTunes is the online leader, so it must be iTunes.

Really I was under the impression iTunes contributed little to the album chart. You don't have to go into the shop though to buy an album you can order a physical copy online which I presume would be what most people would do?

In 2010 only 20% of total album sales were digital, 80% were physical CDs - even though most of these are probably bought online these days. Digital album sales are up in 2011 but only about 30% compared to 2010, by far the majority of album sales are still physical CDs not downloads.

So I doubt that iTunes would be the biggest single seller of albums, I'd expect that amazon would sell more as it sells both physical and downloads these days.

(90% of singles sales are downloads though which is why iTunes is such a key retailer for singles.)

But I've not seen actual stats on which are the biggest retailers.