First Quarter Music Sales

The news isn’t good. No one is expecting album sales to all of a sudden skyrocket, but these year over year declines are substantial. Look at this:

• Album sales in the USA for March ’09 were down 17.9% compared to the same month in ’08.
• Album sales in the USA for March ’09 were down 29.8% compared to the same month in ’07.
• 1st quarter (Jan – Mar ’09) album sales down 13.5% over last year.
• 1st quarter cd sales were down 20.3%.
• Not one single album during 1st Quarter ’09 reached platinum sales volume (1 million +).
• Digital album sales were up 23% over the 1st quarter, but not nearly enough to combat the drop in cd sales.

This isn’t shocking or new, but just shows that companies relying on album sales for revenue have a problem that is deteriorating quickly.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com