New Music Sales Reports Send Mixed Signal
The U.S. single-track download market slipped 0.2% to 597.4 million tracks in the first half of the year according to Nielsen SoundScan. The data may suggest that the digital music singles market has reached a saturation point. Variable pricing, which has set top new releases at $1.29 rather than the more standard $.99, may have also contributed to flat sales.
On a more positive note, download sales of the more profitable album format grew by 12.7% to 42.2 million. Digital albums now make up 27.4% of all album sales. That's encouraging news, but not nearly enough to offset the continuing decline in CD sales.
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rather than download sales reaching a saturation point, my assumption would be that people’s wallets reached a saturation point in a very bad economic year. i’m glad to see albums, rather than singles, take such a dramatic leap up in sales!
i don’t see mixed signals here. it’s a tale of two formats, yes, but there are no mixed signals.
growth in track sales have lagged growth in digital album sales for a few years. i’ve been surprised that sales plateaued as fast as they did, but a product life cycle always reaches a peak.
tracks are seen as cannibalistic. an album sale is a better goal, from a financial standpoint, than a single track. so, labels have got better at selling digital albums.
both formats are sensitive to price changes. track prices have increased while digital album prices have decreased. thus, track sales have flattened out while digital album sales continue to grow.