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# Final ’06 CD Sales Down. Even Digital Misses Projections
- URL: https://www.hypebot.com/final_06_cd_sal/
- Published: 2007-01-05T02:20:14.000Z
- Updated: 2007-01-05T02:20:14.000Z
- Description: U.S. music sales which include CDs and digital album downloads fell 4.9% in 2006 according to Nielsen SoundScan. U.S. album sales fell to 588.2 million from 618.9 million in 2005.. Continue reading [https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2007/01/final_06_cd_sal.html]
- Author: Bruce Houghton
- Tags: Vinyl, Cassettes & Retail, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-01-21 11:06

U.S. music sales which include **CDs**  
**and digital album downloads fell 4.9% in 2006** according to Nielsen SoundScan. U.S. album sales fell to 588.2  
million from 618.9 million in 2005\. Digital track  

[![Soundscan_large](https://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/images/soundscan_large.jpg "Soundscan_large")](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/soundscan%5Flarge.jpg&ref=hypebot.com)

sales however rose 65% to 581.9 million units  
in ’06 pushing overall music sales to 1.19 billion units for a **healthy increase in total music sales** including albums, singles, video and digital tracks of **19.4%.**

The numbers can be deceiving and these **didn’t show enough growth in digital** from some analysts. "Not only did year-end 2006 digital sales fall short of our  
expectations, more concerning is the deceleration in growth  
during the fourth quarter," according to Richard Greenfield of  
Pali Research. **"We are increasingly concerned that digital track sales**  
**will struggle to show 40% growth in 2007."**

There was a big surge from December 25-31 where SoundScan said digital track sales hit a record  
30.1 million units versus a previous record of 19.9 million in ’05\. Digital album sales for the week

[![Creativezenvplus_17](https://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/images/creativezenvplus_17.jpg "Creativezenvplus_17")](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/creativezenvplus%5F17.jpg&ref=hypebot.com)

  
totaled 1.2 million. But while Greenfield estimates that the number of digital songs sold in 4thQ rose 57%; he notes that it was **sharply slower growth than the 129% jump in the fourth quarter of 2005.**

SoundScan sees the numbers more optimistically. For the first time a song, "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter, topped 2 million  
in digital sales in one year. **22 digital songs exceeded 1**  
**million sales compared with only two in 2005.** "Once again, this year we’re seeing incredibly high numbers  
of consumer music purchase decisions," said Rob Sisco,  
president of Nielsen SoundScan. "We continue to see tremendous  
growth in digital track and digital album sales, which are up  
65 percent and 101 percent respectively." (**[For an in depth look at the numbers.](http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?epi%5FmenuItemID=989a6827590d7dda9cdf6023a0908a0c&epi%5FmenuID=c791260db682611740b28e347a808a0c&epi%5FbaseMenuID=384979e8cc48c441ef0130f5c6908a0c&ndmViewId=news%5Fview&newsLang=en&div=-1054896837&newsId=20070104005813&ref=hypebot.com)**)