Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
What? Not even close to a monopoly ... whether de-facto or actual.
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In the US, they have around 65% of the digital music market, which is around 25-30% of total music sales.
The next closest competitor is Amazon at 13%.
So yeah, in that specific field they are currently a monopoly.
A monopoly does not necessarily mean the company is the sole provider; it's an indicator of market influence. E.g. US Steel was often described as a "monopoly," and was subjected to (unsuccessful) anti-trust actions, but "only" held 2/3 of the market at the peak of its powers.
Same thing with Microsoft, which has a very large percentage of OS market share (usually 90% or more), but are not the only OS vendor.