According to a new report from market research firm NPD, Apple’s iTunes Store leads all digital retailers in music sales, capturing 69 percent of the market. Looking strictly at the digital music market, Apple’s iTunes captured 69 percent of the market in the first half of 2009. Amazon came in second place with eight percent of the market.

Looking all music sold, Apple continues to lead with 25 percent of the market. Apple’s market share is based on unit volumes of music sold at retail and includes both physical CDs and paid digital downloads. In 2007 Apple’s overall market share for music sold was 14 percent and in 2008 it was 21 percent.

Russ Crupnick, vice president of entertainment industry analysis, said digital music sales will equal that of the physical CD by the end of 2010.

“The growth of legal digital music downloads, and Apple’s success in holding that market, has increased iTunes’s overall strength in the retail music category,” said Crupnick. “But the importance of the big box retailers shouldn’t be dismissed, as long as the majority of music consumers continue to buy CDs.”