Despite a recession, digital music sales continue to climb, finally breaking the 1 billion sales mark for 2008.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, digital track sales are up 28% over 2007's digital track sales, up more than predicted.

In April 2008, SoundScan projected that digital track sales would break the 1 billion mark for the year, and the mark has been hit with two weeks to spare, and is expected to near the 1.04 billion mark by year's end.

Of the year's sales, 17% were credited to the top 200 digital tracks, equaling 171 million sales.

Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" is the highest selling digital song so far in 2008, with 3.3 million sales.