The figures prove that digital music sales are falling quicker than physical sales…
Last month, DMN was provided with information from PwC. According to their projected figures, revenue from physical formats are falling at a (compound annual) rate of —12.3%, and revenue from paid music downloads are falling at a (compound annual) rate of —14.3%.
This information suggested that digital downloads are falling at a faster rate than that of physical. However, this was based on predicted figures. Now, music reporting company BuzzAngle, have concrete evidence to prove that digital album sales are falling faster than physical sales. The figures are below.
In the first six months of 2015, there were over 55 million digital album sales in the US. However in the first six months of 2016, digital album sales in the US dropped to just over 45 million – that is a decline of nearly 10 million, which constitutes to a 17% decrease. But, that’s just digital album sales, BuzzAngle also noted that digital song sales are actually falling quicker than digital album sales, at a rate of (-) 24.2%.
Physical album sales in the first six months of 2015 were at just over 44 million, which dropped to just over 40 million in the first six months of 2016 – that’s a decline of 4 million, which constitutes to a 9% fall. This proves that music digital download sales are falling faster than physical sales.
Why?
The massive decline in digital downloads has come at a time when the uprise of music streaming services is taking place. With more and more people signing up to on-demand music streaming services, like Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal, there is less need for them to download a song or album.
Even in the digital era, CD’s obviously still matter to people, more so than the convenience of downloading a song or album digitally. Superstars like Adele, who sold more than 1 million copies of her album this year, had over 65% of her overall album sales in CD format.
(Image by Henry Burrows, Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic, CC by-sa 2.0)
The post Concrete Evidence Shows Digital Downloads Are Falling Faster Than Physical Sales appeared first on Digital Music News.