Album sales continued to dive last year in the United States.
In another sign that the major record labels have not been able to slow their downward spiral, figures released today by Nielsen SoundScan show that album sales dropped a further 15% in 2007 (or by 87.7 million units).Digital album sales have not filled the gap. Digital albums sales increased by 17.4 million units with overall digital album sales of totaling 50 million units. Digital sales now account for 10% of album sales compared to 5.5% of album sales in 2006.
Sales of CDs over the internet only had a marginally increase. 30.1 million CDs were sold online during 2007, an increase of 700,000. More than 390,000 individual physical albums sold at least 1 unit over the internet in 2007.
In total units of music sold, Nielsen SoundScan reported a 14% increase from 1,198 million to 1,369 million from 2006 to 2007. In reporting overall music sales, SoundScan treat a one song download or a ringtone equal to a full priced album.
The biggest drop in marketshare came from the Rap genre. It dropped 30% in 2007.
Alternative music was down 19.2%
R&B was down 18.3%
Country was down 16.3%
Latin was down 15.6%
Christian/Gospel was down 14.3%
Metal was down 13.9%
Rock was down 12.5%
Jazz was down 10.6%
Soundtracks were down 9.5%
Classical was down 7.2%
New Age was down 5.9%
Rock was the most popular genre selling 149,414,000 units
R&B sold 95,555,000 units
Alternative sold 88,604,000 units
Country sold 62,696,000 units
Metal sold 52,951,000 units
Rap sold 41,662,000 units
Christian/Gospel sold 34,017,000 units
Latin sold 31,853,000 units
Classical sold 18,044,000 units
Jazz sold 14,047,000 units
Soundtrack sold 24,570,000 units
New Age 3,210,000 units
