Music 2006 - Digital Track Sales Rose 65%; Album Sales Fell 4.9%: Nielsen SoundScan
Overall
U.S. music sales, including album sales (CDs and digital albums) and
single digital track sales, rose 19.4% to 1.19 billion units in 2006,
according to music tracker Nielsen SoundScan. Digital track sales rose 65%
to 581.9 million units, while digital
album sales more than doubled to 33 million units d in 2006.
Other Highlights from Nielsen SoundScan data:
- Total U.S. album sales (including CDs and digital albums), fell 4.9% in 2006, to 588.2 million units.
- The year's best-selling album: Walt Disney Co TV movie, "High School Musical," with sales exceeding 3.7 million units. Albums by Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Nickelback and Justin Timberlake made to the top five.
- Disney-inspired soundtrack aimed at 'tweens -- "Hannah Montana" -- was the No. 8-selling album and sold nearly 2 million copies.
- Country group Rascal Flatts was the biggest selling artist in 2006, with nearly 5 million albums sold and nearly 4 million digital track sales.
- For the first time, a digital song, "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter, broke the 2 million sales market in a year, while 22 digital songs exceeded the 1 million sales for year, compared to only 2 digital songs in 2005.
-
Overall country album sales dipped by less than 1% while classical music witnessed the largest percentage sales boost of 22.5% surge in 2006.
For more, around the web:
- Album sales down in 2006-Nielsen Soundscan Reuters
- '06 Album Sales Plunge; Downloads Way Up Salon
- SoundScan: Downloaded Music Up 67% BizReport
