Electricals group DSGi is to roll out a digital download service for music, computer games and security software to all its online UK brands this year.

The retailer’s PC World web site launched its Digitaldownloadcentre.com service in January. The service will be extended to Dixons.co.uk, Currys.co.uk and computer support unit Tech Guys’ web site before the end of the year. Eventually, it will also be offered overseas.

DSGi microsite manager for Digitaldownloadcentre.com David Linhart said: “Obviously, for the future, [international] is something we would be looking at, but, before that, we need to get this right in the UK. Ideally, we would like to get everyone from DSGi on board and get them to use it as the service centre for digital downloads.”

The initiative reinforces the importance of the web to DSGi, which generates up to 12 per cent of its sales through online.

Linhart said that PC World sells about 120,000 downloadable products, including music tracks – which account for two thirds of the offer – computer games and security software. The download site received 80,000 visitors during the four weeks to March 22.

PC World wants to vastly increase the number of products the download centre sells, particularly music tracks and albums. Linhart said that it does not sell movie downloads, partly because of residential customers’ bandwidth constraints, but he added: “We are looking into it.”