Can the Drop in Music Sales Be Explained by Michael Porter's Product Life Cycle and Will the CD in the Near Future Be Replaced by mp3?

Conclusion.
In this paper, we have discussed various factors that might have caused the recent decrease in global CD sales. A decrease in the quality of music is proven and would not be able to fully explain the decrease. Mp3 downloading is considered by the music industry as the main cause, but several studies on this subject have disproved this theory. Product disadvantages that CDs have compared to mp3s have triggered a shift from the mature stage towards the decline stage in Porters Product Life Cycle Model.
Porters model can explain why CD sales have plummeted in recent years. The market for CDs is saturated, there are technologically more advanced alternatives, the most important of which is mp3, the music industry itself is looking for different ways to make money and the release of new albums has decreased. These factors prove that the CD is in the decline stage of its Product Life Cycle.
It is also important to note that a similar drop in record sales occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the LP was at the end of its Product Life Cycle, and that record sales in the 1990s may have been abnormally high as individuals replaced older formats with CDs (Liebowitz, 2003).
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