US album sales slide in 2010

US album sales fell by 12.7% in 2010 despite a 13.0% rise in digital albums, painting a gloomy picture of the world’s biggest music market.

Total album sales across physical and digital fell to 326.2m units from 373.9m, as sales of CDs dropped for the fourth consecutive year, according to Nielsen / Billboard numbers.

And reports that the single track download market has stalled in the US were lent credence by a slender 1.0% increase in digital track sales, to 1.17bn units. In sharp contrast, sales of single tracks in the UK rose 6.6% last year.

One bright spot was digital album sales, which grew 13.0% to 86.3m, mirroring a 30.6% annual increase in the UK.

However, it was not enough to prevent overall music sales (including albums, singles, music video and digital tracks) falling by 2.4% to 1.5bn units – the first time this number has fallen in the digital era, according to Billboard.

For the British music industry the figures – while undoubtedly troubling – did offer some hope: EMI’s market share of albums increased to 10.18% from 9.20% aided by the success of US signing Lady Antebellum, while Susan Boyle’s The Gift and Sade’s Soldier Of Love were both among the top ten selling albums of the year.

Meanwhile, Taio Cruz’s scored two of the top ten selling digital songs, with Dynamite at four and Break Your Heart at nine.

But it was Universal who dominated: the major had a 30.84% share of the albums market in 2010, ahead of Sony Music (27.95%) and Warner (20.01%) and also released the year’s biggest selling album in Eminem’s Recovery. The year’s top selling artist – Taylor Swift – is also a Universal act.

Recovery sold 3.42m units in the year, followed by Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now (3.09) and Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (2.96m). Boyle’s second album, the Gift, sold 1.85m, despite being released in November.

Katy Perry’s California Gurls was the year’s top selling digital song, shifting 4.40m units, followed by Train’s Hey, Soul Sister (4.31m) and Eminem’s Love The Way You Lie (4.25m).

The results follow the release of BPI figures for the UK market yesterday, which revealed a 7.0% fall in album sales (click here to read Music Week’s coverage of the story).

Source: Music Week