Album sales drop 11%, streaming grows 54% in the USA

The first numbers around US recorded music sales during 2014 are in, curtesy of Nielsen, and the picture is not a bright one. 

Album sales plummeted 11% compared to 2013, from 289 million to 257 million. The decline was across both physical and digital since digital albums also fell by 9%, whilst in 2013 that drop was of just 1%. 

The relatively even decline of both digital and physical formats also meant that the percentage share of the two remained the same. Digital albums claimed 41% of total sales. 

The best selling album of 2014 was Taylor Swift’s 1979, followed by the Frozen soundtrack and Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour. Both Swift and Frozen sold over 3 million copies in 2014 whilst Sam Smith was a pretty distant third with 1.2 million copies sold. 

Digital track sales declined 12%, with Pharrell’s “Happy” topping the best-seller list with 6.45 million downloads. 

So, not a great year for recorded music sales. But how did streaming services fare? 

Very well, it seems, with a 54% increase in streams over the course of 2014 totalling 164 billion plays.

We have yet to see some concrete numbers around the financial impact of the growth of streaming services, but it is still unlikely to make up for the continued decline in actual sales. 

Finally, vinyl continues to be a dark horse in the format wars, as it recorded a 52% growth over 2013. It will never rival CDs, digital sales or streaming, but with 9.2 million sales it is becoming an important lifeline especially for smaller independent labels. 

(Andrea Leonelli)