Analysis: Vinyl, Digital Sales Hit New High Marks 
November 11, 2009 - Digital and Mobile | Retail 

By Glenn Peoples, Nashville

Vinyl and single track download sales set new records last week, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan. The two events represent very different trends that were born from the rising popularity of digital music.

As of November 8, four artists broke Rihanna’s single-year digital tracks sales record of 9.9 million tracks: Michael Jackson (11.3 million tracks year-to-date), Lady Gaga (11.1 million tracks year-to-date), Black Eyed Peas (10.3 million tracks year-to-date) andTaylor Swift (9.98 million tracks year-to-date). The top three artists have already topped 10 million tracks sold this year and one, Taylor Swift, will surely pass the mark next week. Next week, sales of digital albums should surpass last year’s total of 65 million and sales of digital tracks should top the 1 billion mark.

Year-to-date vinyl record sales topped two million units last week, breaking the previous record of 1.9 million units last year. At the same point in time last year, SoundScan had tracked 1.5 million sales of vinyl records.

That’s roughly a 37% year-over-year improvement. Vinyl has come a long way from the period in the ’90s when it was a format that was almost exclusively used by underground rock bands and DJ-oriented genres. Many years passed when most artists - especially mainstream artists - did not have vinyl releases (many still do not have vinyl releases). Though it gained momentum towards the end of the decade, it wasn’t until the mid-2000s when new releases of all stripes were being released on vinyl, when it was seen as a purer way to experience music in an era of near-ubiquitous digital music. Labels started offering MP3 downloads with vinyl purchases, thus creating a great digital-physical combination. Today, consumers can find vinyl in both mass merchants and the usual Independent stores.

The two trends - digital sales on one hand, vinyl records on the other - could not be more different. For all the efficiencies of digital music’s distribution and supply chain, vinyl counters with an equally expensive and inefficient process. Yet, the two are on the rise.

There is no doubt digital formats represents the future of recorded music. iTunes is just the beginning. New types of digital services promise to change how consumers acquire and experience music. Yet the concurrent rise of digital and vinyl tells us this: Through their purchases of vinyl, a small yet dedicated group of music fans are showing artists and labels that digital does not fill all their needs.

Source: Billboard

iTunes swallowed a quarter of US music sales

By Kelly Fiveash 

Posted in Music and Media, 18th August 2009 16:24 GMT

One in four songs sold in the US are done so via Apple’s iTunes store, according to a new report

NPD Group’s MusicWatch division said today that while audio CDs remain the most popular format among music consumers, digital tracks notched up 35 per cent of all songs sold in the first half of 2009.

That’s a 15 per cent leap in sales compared with 2007 figures, and a five per cent jump on last year’s numbers.

NPD said that the iTunes store dominated digital music sales, accounting for 25 per cent of all songs sold in the US in the first six months of this year.

In 2008 it pulled in 21 per cent of all digital music sales, while in 2007 it grabbed 14 per cent of the market.

US retail giant Walmart takes second place in digital music sales, according to NPD. It raked in 14 per cent from downloads sold via its website as well as in store.

But iTunes outshines all other digital music retailers, where Apple leads the market by a hefty 69 per cent ahead of its rivals, said NPD.

Amazon’s MP3 store lags a long way behind the iTunes behemoth, gobbling up just eight per cent of the digital music market.

NPD garnered its findings from US consumers aged 13 and above, who reported their purchases of CDs, digital music tracks and albums sold a-la-carte, and wireless over-the-air transactions, excluding ringtones.

It didn’t reveal how many US folk took part in the survey, however. NPD also overlooked the impact illegal file sharing has on digital music sales.

Source: The Register