Nielsen Music recently released their music report on the 2017 Q3 industry trends in sales, streaming and consumer engagement. The report announced that streaming growth is extremely positive, with an overall growth of 40.5 percent for both video and audio.
Another point worth noting in this report is the rise in vinyl sales. Last year’s vinyl sales totaled 9.07 million sales up to Q3. This year’s sales total 9.35 million so far, resulting in an increase of 3.1 percent.
One worrying point worth noting, however, is the physical CD sales. Compared to last year, CD sales fell 19.9 percent to 57.8 million copies. While this is still a much higher number of sales compared to vinyls, the percent decrease should definitely raise an alarm.
Track download sales had the hardest time of all formats and configurations, falling 23.1 percent to 437.5 million units in the first nine-months of 2017, versus the 569.2 million units in 2016.
The Beatles still claim the highest selling vinyl album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, with over 40,000 in sales this year.