The IFPI (the international version of the RIAA) has (further) delayed publishing its global market share data over reported sqabbles surrounding the way digital sales are accounted for.

Claiming that its member companies were still debating over how to account for digital sales, the IFPI has pushed back against industry watchers anxious to get their hands on the data, which covers the year 2005. "They're basically recalculating the way they do it because of the rise of digital," IFPI spokesman Alex Jacob said.

According to Reuters, industry executives have said that, "One of the problems compiling the information has been a lack of uniformity in gathering data from the mobile operators, which are an increasingly important source of sales."

My skeptisim of the big four is still intact, which makes me wonder what exactly the numbers illustrate. Have digital sales grown at embarassingly high rates despite the IFPI's claims and legal actions against what it has called rampant piracy?

[via Reuters]