Digital track sales fall in the US for the first time since 2001

Nielsen Soundscan has released its first numbers for US music sales in 2013, Billboard reports.

Soundscan posted a decline of 5.7% in 2013 for US digital track sales, digital albums also posted a decline falling by 0.1%. The latter figure is a little surprising given that in the first half of the year the albums sector had performed well, but then again the vast majority of big Q4 releases from Katy Perry to Lady Gaga ended up under-performing.

Last week the BPI posted its UK numbers which showed a marked decline in digital track sales, −4.2% compared to 2012, but a steady increase in digital album sales for 2013, +6.8% compared to 2012.

Both the UK and the US are markets where streaming is gaining a foothold amongst mainstream consumers and the decline in single track sales could be consistent with a shift from ownership to access.

In the US, album sales overall fell significantly by 8.4% and CDs by 14.5%. As in the UK, the US has seen a resurgence of vinyl shifting 6 million albums - just under 1.5 million more than in 2012. In spite of the increase in vinyl sales the independent sector is not faring too well with sales falling by almost 12%.

Looking at market share, Universal Music is far and away first with 38.9% market share, whilst Sony lags behind at 29.5%. Warner Music is a distant third at 18.7%. In the US Universal Music didn’t have to comply to the same regulatory restrictions as in Europe - for example it can demand “most favored nations” terms on its deals - and its market share means that any new digital music service will have to do whatever is required to get hold of the company’s catalogue.

Of course these figures only provide half of the picture as there are no numbers on US streaming and related revenues for 2013 as of yet. In the UK streaming turned out to provide over 10% of the recorded music industry’s income in 2013 so it will be interesting to see what that percentage will be in the US.