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Business News Digital Labels & Publishers
Ten million digital albums sold so far this year
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 28 June 2011
Ten million digital albums have been sold in the UK already this year, at the same point in 2010 only 7.1 million had been legitimately downloaded, demonstrating that the album format is truly taking off in the digital domain, which was initially very much a singles market. That said, nearly 80% of British album sales are still on CD, showing that that format is far from dead when it comes to long players.
Now, you might be thinking, how the hell do we know this? Well, little do you know, we have a direct line to the very heart of the music industry’s big fat counting machine, aka The Official Charts Company. Well, they send us press releases. Although only 22% of album sales so far this year have been digital, the digital-to-physical ratio is moving towards the former year on year, last year 17.5% of albums sold were digital, while in 2008 only 7.7% were.
Commenting on this tiny little package of sales stats, Official Charts Company counter-in-chief Martin Talbot told CMU: “These figures amount to 59,000 digital albums a day on average this year, compared to 42,000 in the first six months of 2010. By the end of last year, 16.7 million digital albums had been sold in the UK; at that rate, the market total should soar beyond 20 million sales by the end of this year. It is also true, however, that we should prepare for digital albums to co-exist with physical albums for some time to come. With digital accounting for just 22% of all albums sold, CD continues to be the mass market favourite. At this stage in the life-cycle of the digital single, physical sales had declined to less than 10%. In comparison, the CD album will be around for plenty of time to come”.
Now, as a special treat for reading that very long quote in its entirety, here’s a list of the five best selling digital albums so far this year.
1. Adele – 21 (Beggars/XL)
2. Rihanna – Loud (Universal/Mercury)
3. Bruno Mars – Doo-Wops & Hooligans (Warner/Atlantic)
4. Jessie J – Who You Are (Universal Island)
5. Chase & Status – No More Idols (Universal/Mercury)
