In 2007, the volume of physical albums sold for the music industry declined by 17% due to digital downloads, causing a significant decline in revenues and profits for the “Big Four” and other record labels. Although, UMG’s total revenue fell by 11.7% in 2007, this was not nearly as bad as some of the other music groups like Sony and EMI, whose revenues dropped 27.7% and 13% respectively. Much of this relatively superior performance in light of the declining music industry was due to efforts put forth by UMG’s eLabs division. With these efforts, legal digital distribution of UMG’s music has continued to increase due to the company’s partnerships with Apple’s iTunes and other digital download retailers, such as Napster, RealNetworks, and Wal-Mart. In 2007, UMG made an investment in hip-hop music portal Loud.com, and in the same year the company began selling its music catalog online in unrestricted mp3 format through Amazon.com.