2012: US album sales fall 4.4%, while digital gains 6.1%

Nielsen SoundScan's year-end report shows a slightly negative trend in the sales of albums - down 4.4% since 2011 (a good result, considering that between 2006 and 2010 the US market suffered double-digit declines). Despite this, US music industry had not a bad year at all, especially considering the continued healthy growth of digital-track sales that indicate a steady long-term turnaround for the business.

Digital sales ascended with download stores finally declared king of the hill in album sales - surpassing mass merchants by selling 111.7 million units, versus the 93.1 million sold in discount department stores like Walmart and Target.
Download stores now account for 37.2% of all album sales, up from 31.2% at the end of 2011. Last year, the two categories were much closer 103.6 million to 103.1 million with the big-box stores on top.
Digital-track sales enjoyed 5.1% growth to 1.34 billion units: thanks to this performance, album sales plus TEA (track equivalent albums whereby 10 tracks equal one album), only declined 1.8% for the year.

Specifically, in 2012 cd sales continued their decline, dropping 13.5% to 193.4 million while digital album sales jumped 14.1%. Vinyl album sales actually managed to surpass digital's sales growth, increasing by 17.7% to 4.55 million units. But that's still only 1.44% of all US album sales in 2012.