Well it looks like Apple is king of the hill when it comes to music sales—at least for one month, having passed Wal-Mart for top honors in January, according to one research group.

Ars Technica is reporting that it saw a copy of an email sent by the NPD MusicWatch Survey to some Apple employees delivering the good news. The data showed that Apple’s iTunes digital downloads store accounted for 19 percent of music sales in January, followed by Wal-Mart at 15 percent and Best Buy at 13 percent.

On the whole, digital downloads made up nearly 30 percent of total music sales, which just highlights more of the music sales trend that the NPD Group has been tracking. It found that 48 percent of U.S. teens didn’t purchase a CD last year, Ars notes.

On top of that, keep in mind that Wal-Mart’s sales numbers include their physical stores—where CDs still line the shelves. Recently, Apple had surpassed Best Buy as the number 2 music seller.

Maybe the data for January also underscores that iTunes gift cards were a lot more popular than Wal-Mart gift cards for stuffing stockings in December.

Arlen Schweiger - Managing editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen contributes product news items to electronichouse.com along with his role on the print publication. Got a tip? Send it along!