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Business News Labels & Publishers Retail
Record sales decline slowed down in 2009
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 24 March 2010
The decline in record sales slowed down significantly last year, despite the recession and all that jazz. According to stats from the Entertainment Retailers Association, whose members represent over 90% of the market, music sales in 2009 were 0.6% down year on year in terms of volume, and 0.8% in terms of value. This despite the disappearance of Woolies and Zavvi from the high street.
This means that music sales held up last year much better than video and games. Video saw sales volumes fall 5.9%, with overall sales value down 10.6%, while in gaming volume was down 9.5% and salves value 11%.
Needless to say, music sales were helped enormously by the booming a la carte digital market, which is slowly starting to compensate for lost physical product sales. And a handful of big selling albums, Susan Boyle and Lady Gaga in particular, helped keep sales up too.
The video and gaming sectors are, of course, earlier in their physical-to-digital transference period, so that they saw greater declines in sales last year probably isn’t all that surprising.
It is worth noting that while the decline in music sales last year was only modest, both video and gaming still considerably out rank music in terms of overall revenue generation, though gaming is in part aided by higher price points in terms of its ability to bring in the cash.
Commenting on her trade body’s 2009 stats, ERA Director General Kim Bayley told CMU: “Surging download sales and the huge appeal of SuBo and Gaga show music still has huge appeal for the British public. It is too soon to call an end to music’s decline, but in 2009 entertainment retailers discovered music has still got a lot to offer”.
