What percentage of US music sales are digital downloads vs. CDs?

Please provide a source. Thanks! Asked by moteltub 55 months ago Similar questions: percentage music sales digital downloads CDs Entertainment > Music.

Similar questions: percentage music sales digital downloads CDs.

An article from about 2 months ago says CDs make up 85% of sales This is from an article in the Wall Street Journal dated March 21st:The sharp slide in sales of CDs, which still account for more than 85% of music sold, has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads, which were supposed to have been the industry's salvation. Digital sales of individual songs this year have risen 54% from a year earlier to 173.4 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But that's nowhere near enough to offset the 20% decline from a year ago in CD sales to 81.5 million units.

online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117444575... site puts digital sales at only 10%, but it's unclear if that's worldwide or just in the U.S. :Digital sales now account for around 10% of the music market as record companies experiment and innovate with an array of business models and digital music products, involving hundreds of licensing partners. ifpi.org/content/section_resources/digit... good analysis says the following:This quarter, 81.5 million CDs will be sold. While that's down 20 percent from the same period last year, digital singles sold by the likes of Apple's iTunes store grew 54 percent, to account for 175 million songs sold.In other words, the quantity of downloaded songs far outweighs the quantity of CDs sold as a whole.

How many of those purchases are "singles," as opposed to digital album sales conducted online or subscription downloads? Last year the industry saw about $2 billion in revenues from online music sales, and nearly $800 million of that stemmed from single-track sales, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's report. That leads me to estimate that at least 40 percent of sales are singles, which means that this quarter we could see something in the range of 70 million "singles" sold digitally.

The question is: how often does a consumer opt to buy just one or two songs off an album rather than buy the whole thing? This phenomenon must affect the top of the music charts quite viciously. I know I'm reluctant to buy an album, especially anything approaching a "hit album," unless I know that there's more than 2 to 3 songs on it that I like.

Otherwise, I don't want to take the "risk. "But to answer the question of how often, let's just estimate based on what limited information we have. Given the estimate of 70 million digital singles, we could say that the ratio between consumers buying digital songs and entire CDs is approximately 1:1.22.

That's quite a leveling. If my estimates have been conservative, the balance may be tipped even more in favor of digital singles. Whereas years ago most consumers would drop their hard-earned cash on a whole album just to get "Tom's Diner," that same song can now be had for a buck.

In other words, the business is changing. Legal downloads are on the rise, physical CD sales are on the decline, and consumers appear eager to purchase digital singles. Even if they're not just buying one or two songs off an album, that prudence can be devastating to CD album sales.

Generally speaking, it takes 10 songs to reach the cost of an "album" (if generalized to $10), so even someone buying a handful of songs off an album leaves a "revenue gap" compared to a whole album sale. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070321-accounting-for-the-big-plunge-in-music-sales-the-digital-singles-effect.html**********So what it all means is that digital sales are booming but they still only represent a small fraction of all music sales. Again, many of the figures and discussion above seem to be discussing worldwide sales, though the WSJ article makes extensive mention of sales at U.S. Retailers.

Their 85% sales for CD is probably a U.S. Figure. I hope this helps! Sources: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117444575607043728-lMyQjAxMDE3NzI0MTQyNDE1Wj.html .

85% is on CDs, only 15% is digital. In a dramatic acceleration of the seven-year sales decline that has battered the music industry, compact-disc sales for the first three months of this year plunged 20% from a year earlier, the latest sign of the seismic shift in the way consumers acquire music. The sharp slide in sales of CDs, which still account for more than 85% of music sold, has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads, which were supposed to have been the industry's salvation.

Sources: online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117444575... .

More physical albums are sold, but the number of downloads sold is rapidly increasing. According to the Nielsen statistics for 2006, 345.3 million dollars worth of CDs were sold in the United States, and 18.6 million dollars of digital music was sold. Even though more physical CDs were purchased, the amount was lower then the figures posted for 2005.CD sales for 2006 were down 5% from the previous year, while the sale of digital albums increased a staggering 65%.

Sources: longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/01/yeare... .

I thought amazon did music downloads but I see no evidence of it.

How come when you buy music downloads from iTunes or some other well know place, people don't have.

I need to find the music group chicago their cds.

How to get itunes music to kindle with no software downloads.

How do I access music downloads bought from amazon.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.