The worst album sales in the US music industry

US album sales have fallen to 3.97 million – the lowest figure since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991.

The figure is down 91,000 year-on-year, the week ending August 25 2013 recorded 4.88 million albums sold.

According to Nielsen SoundScan’s mid-year report in July, US album sales were down 15% on 2013 at a total of 120.9 million albums. Last year’s sales were 142 million.

Now, overall US album sales are down 14.6 percent. Digital album sales are down 11.7 percent and track sales are down 12.8 percent.

This decline isn’t a first – in 2013, average weekly album sales fell from 5.7 million units in the first quarter to 5.23 million units in the second quarter, then 4.86 million units in the third quarter.

It’s a different story to streaming, however, which grew 39% in 2013, making up one-fifth of the business for recorded music in the US.

Source: Billboard