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There are currently around 355 downloads stores worldwide, but with Apple's share of the market rising to 83 per cent, many of the smaller operators will soon be forced out or absorbed by a larger rival.

'I don't imagine all these services can last,' said Gabriel Levy, head of music in Europe for RealNetworks. 'Some will go out of business or be consolidated.'

His remarks were echoed by Barney Wragg, senior vice president of Universal Music Group's eLabs unit.

'The market keeps growing, and there will be winners and losers,' he said. 'The fact that there are 355 retailers - are they all economically viable? Clearly the market is adjusting all the time.'

Even Napster, which, along with Real and Yahoo!, is among the distant pack chasing Apple, is being talked of as a potential casualty, despite recent upbeat pronouncements after signing up its 500,000th subscriber.

However Napster insists that business will carry on as before.

'The company is not looking to be sold, the management is not looking to

Music industry executives are desperate to see some genuine competition to Apple, but acknowledges that as long as the iPod-iTunes axis remains a closed system this is unlikely. Ironically, having insisted that music stores apply DRM to downloads, the labels are now unhappy because Apple's DRM prevents rival music stores that use their own DRM from providing iPod-compatible downloads.

Calls for Apple to licence its FairPlay DRM have fallen on deaf ears. So, it appears, have frequent record label entreaties to Apple on variable pricing. John Kennedy, chairman of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, said there has been virtually zero progress in discussions with Apple.

'Apple is going to listen to their customers before they listen to the industry,' he said.

Which is no consolation to label bosses who have discovered that with digital music all that glisters is not gold. The rise of 'a la carte' track-by-track downloads has had, they say, a detrimental affect on album CD sales and lowered the price that consumers expect to pay for music. People will pay more for a ringtone, they note, than they will for a complete song.

By persuading Apple to accommodate variable pricing they hope to persuade consumers that although digital tracks are equal, some are more equal than others. Apple presumably realises that asking someone to pay 79p for a track encoded at a relatively low bitrate in a closed format with DRM applied may be a bit too much.