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Digital Sales Higher Than CD Sales For First Time
Other | Thursday 31st May 2012 | Osh
There's been a seismic shift in the music industry.
For the first time, digital downloads and streams have overtaken CDs in sales - 2012 has so far seen 56% of music sales belonging to digital services, with it earning £86.5 million as opposed to £69.3 million that its physical counterpart has made. This is a 22% rise for digital sales since the last quarter of 2011. Chief Executive of the BPI, Geoff Taylor, has stated on the matter, 'This is a significant milestone in the evolution of the music business. UK record labels have embraced dgital to their core, supporting innovation and licensing more new online and mobile services than any other country'.
This information is interesting, as it comes shortly after the news that weekly album sales in the UK have been at their lowest since 1996. Keane's Strangeland topped the chart in the week of 21st May, having only sold 19,982 in both digital and physical sales. And four weeks prior to this, Adele's 21 topped the chart - again, after having been there for 70 weeks - with only having sold 17,065 copies to achieve it. These are the only two times since the beginning of the 21st century that an album has sold less than 20,000 copies to secure the no. 1 spot - and they've happened within a month of each other. Are sales stagnating, or growing? The rise of the digital sale, as aforementioned, has been healthily developing, but not enough, it seems, to keep album sales in Britain in equally fine fettle.
Where are we heading with music sales? Are we thriving, or are we dying? It seems that time may tell - but Guestlist Network would love to hear your verdict.
