A Third Of UK Albums Now Bought Digitally

Digital now accounts for almost a third (33.1%) of all UK albums sales, up from 23.6% in the first quarter of 2011, new official market data released by the BPI revealed.

According to the data compiled for the BPI and UK music industry by the Official Charts Company, digital album sales rose 19.6% year-on-year to 7.6m, although in the same period CD sales declined by a quarter (25.4%) from 20.5m to 15.3m.

The predominantly digital (99.7%) singles market continues to grow year-on-year, with 46.7m singles sold in Q1 2012, up 4.4% on 2011’s first quarter tally of 44.7m.

Digital accounted for over a third of sales on three of the top-five selling albums of the quarter. Four in every 10 album sales was a digital download for best-sellers by David Guetta, Florence + The Machine and The Black Keys. Digital took a majority share on six of the top 100 best selling albums. Total Q1 2012 sales across all album formats of 23.0m were down 14.7% from 27.0m on the same period in 2011.

Adele’s 21 was the best selling album of Q1 2012 – mirroring its performance as the biggest seller from Q1 2011 a year ago. Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die is the second biggest seller of 2012, with Our Version Of Events by Emile Sandι at No.3 – both new artists.

The UK’s biggest-selling single of 2012 so far is Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye ft Kimbra, followed by Titanium by David Guetta ft Sia and Domino by Jessie J in third place. All three have sold in excess of 500,000 copies.

BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor noted, “The release schedule for 2011 was front-loaded with stellar album releases from Adele, Jessie J, Bruno Mars and others. Fewer banner releases were scheduled in Q1 of this year, but it is encouraging that consumer confidence in digital albums continued to grow with the format now bagging a third of sales overall.

“Digital has been the dominant format on some key albums during the first quarter of 2012, and we expect that growth to continue.”

Source: BPI