Sales of digital music through iTunes have fallen for the first time since Apple opened the store back in 2003.

Nielsen SoundScan revealed that the sales of digital songs have fallen from 1.34 billion to 1.26 billion despite a number of big releases including Beyonce’s new album.

Digital album sales as a whole suffered a relatively smaller decline of 0.1%.

It is thought that the increase in the use of streaming services such as Spotify are largely to contribute in the decline of digital sales.

Music Business Association president Jim Donio commented saying: "When you talk about sales and revenues and the consumption of music, you have got to get your head around the fact that somebody pays a subscription to a music service and that is a sale.

"That data is extremely important to the overall picture of the relative health of the industry. We're just looking at a snapshot today with year-end sales."