US album sales continue to plummet

Album sales in the US have hit the lowest point since 1991, falling 16.9 per cent in the first half of 2016 alone.

The compact disc saw a steady decline of 11.6 per cent, shifting 50 million, while digital sales fell from 53.7 million to 43.8 million.

Vinyl bucked the trend by continuing to surge, with a rise of 11.4 per cent to 6.2 million.

New album sales have been most heavily impacted by the market contraction, dropping 20.2 per cent to 44.1 million. Back catalogue albums faired slightly better, taking a 7.7 per cent hit to 56.2 million sales.

However, sales don’t tell the whole story, and more people than ever are listening to albums.

208.9 billion tracks were streamed between January 6 and July 6, an increase of 58.7 per cent which translates to 139.2 million album unit sales. Audio streaming has also overtaken video streaming for the first time.

According to Billboard, total US revenue has risen from $1.82 billion to $1.98 billion, an 8.9 per cent increase. This points towards streaming tightening its grip on the market as the manner in which people consume music continues to evolve.

This data includes track-equivalent albums, wherein 10 track sales equal one album unit.

[Via: Billboard]

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter