iTunes Album Sales Jump

Newly-released figures from the Official UK Charts Company -- the group which tracks U.K. chart positions -- reveal that digital album sales climbed by 69.3 percent in comparison with the first quarter of 2007.

That's encouraging because it means digital music buyers are beginning to see album purchases as viable using services such as iTunes.

The industry has often voiced concern that iTunes does not stimulate enough album sales, but this seems set to change.

The company also confirmed that sales of digital single tracks climbed 42.3 percent, year-on-year.

These figures are all the more interesting because 2007 was a banner year for digital sales, with 77.96 million single tracks and 6.25 million albums sold digitally in the U.K. last year, according to the Official UK Charts Company.