Soundscan data through late June show how each of the majors is doing with digital sales relative to its CD sales. The company that is strong at the digital music game has a great digital market share than it does CD market share. It should also have a relatively large market share for digital tracks (single song downloads).

Going by that logic, only only one company excels at digital music. Warner Music Group has a greater digital album market share than it does CD market share, 17.2% to 16.6%. At 18.7%, its digital tracks market share is greater than both its digital album and CD share.

Two of the three other majors have lower digital album shares but higher digital tracks shares. Sony BMG's digital album share is 4.1 points lower than its CD share (19.8 vs. 23.9), and its digital tracks share is 1.1 points higher than its CD share (25.0 vs. 23.9). Universal Music Group has a similar spread of 4.9 points lower for digital albums (27.2 vs. 32.1) and 0.9 points higher for digital tracks (33.0 vs. 32.1).

EMI's digital album and digital tracks share are both lower than its CD share. Its CD share is 8.7% At 7.7%, its digital album share is 1.1 points lower, and at 7.2% its digital tracks share is 1.5 points lower.

Of course, the type of music being sold impacts these numbers. Certain genres have more digital success than do others. If a label is strong in pop/rock and hard rock -- which Warner Music Group certainly is -- it is more likely to have greater market shares for digital albums and digital tracks. Label rosters that are heavy in R&B, soul, country and hip hop are less likely to have greater digital market shares because those genres historically have not had strong digital sales.

In theory, indie labels should have a great digital album share than a CD share. In the physical world, limited shelf space and challenges with distribution can hamper access to the consumers. It turns out this is exactly the case. Indies have a 28% share of digital album sales, far higher than the 18.8% share they have of CDs.

But indies don't sell single digital tracks as well as they sell digital albums, and not even as well as they sell CDs. The indies' digital track share is only 15.8% There could be a number of reasons for this. The most rational explantion is that indies tend to market their artists around an entire album, not a single. Singles, and the singles chart, is largely the domain of major labels with the resources to make the kind of elaborate videos get considerable airplay, and the means to promote a single to commercial radio. In promoting an album through a single, a label is often promoting just that song, not the artist or the artist's album.