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Digital sales continue to grow, but over all record sales still down

By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 6 January 2011

Sales of digital singles and albums in the UK continued to boom in 2010, though don’t buy a new silver hat just yet, overall record sales continued to fall according to stats from the Official Charts Company and the BPI. Obviously illegal downloading is totally and utterly to blame for this, and anyone who says otherwise is just thinking too hard. Stop thinking, will you!

Digital album sales in 2010 were up 30.6% on 2009, and singles sales – mainly digital – were at an all time high. But overall album sales were down 7%, with CD sales declining 12.4%.

Says BPI top dog Geoff Taylor: “2010 showed that the digital singles highs seen in the previous two years were no fluke – music fans continue to embrace the convenience, value and choice offered by legal download stores. The market for digital albums also went mainstream in 2010 with nearly a fifth of sales now coming from online services”.

He continued: “Yet however encouraging it is to see the digital market grow, this must be seen against the bigger picture. Despite unprecedented demand for music, and strong innovation offering consumers new ways to access music online, legal downloads are unable to offset the decline in CD sales because they are dwarfed by illegal competition”.

Finally, he said: “We will continue to do everything we can to promote the legal market, but meaningful action to tackle illegal downloading remains absolutely critical if we are to stabilise British music sales, let alone return to growth. Without it, investment in new digital services and in British musical talent will begin to dry up”.