Following is a selection of recent news articles that referenced information from The NPD Group or NPD expert commentary.

The Road to Profit, Paved With Panties
Los Angeles Times* (November 6, 2005)
Retailers are jostling to outdo one another, wooing women of all shapes and ages with lingerie. The $9.1-billion intimate-apparel niche, including loungewear such as negligees and camisoles — represents almost 10% of total women's apparel sales nationwide, said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at NPD Group, a market research firm. Sales of sleepwear are an additional $3.6 billion.

Music Sales Fail to Match iPod's
Bloomberg* (November 3, 2005)
"There's been a lot of download activity from what's known as the early adopters," said Russ Crupnick, a music industry analyst at Port Washington, N.Y.-based market-research firm NPD Group Inc. "The challenge is: How do you maintain this? The industry has to do a stronger job of reaching out to more mainstream consumers."

DIET: Food Industry Caters to Drivers Eating at the Wheel
Associated Press* (November 3, 2005)
The market researcher NPD Group says the average person ate 32 restaurant meals -including snacks like cones - in the car last year. That's up from 19 in 1984. "Thank God for the power window, if we had to still crank down that window we wouldn't be doing this," said NPD food industry analyst Harry Balzer.

Good News on Prices? Listen Up
Businessweek* (November 2, 2005)
"When you think of falling prices, there are some products that fall in price and some where you pay the same price, but you get a lot more for the same amount of money," says Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis at NPD Group. "In the technology business, both these things happen."

*Source where story originated