The Washington Post reports that digital music single sales grew by 150 percent last year, but may have resulted in fewer CD album sales in stores.
“As iPods and other MP3 players outsell CD players, sales of downloaded singles are booming accordingly,” the publication says. “Though sales of full-length albums were down 7.2 percent last year, the digital singles market grew by 150 percent, with 352.7 million individual songs sold online, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was by far the highest figure for singles sales in any format since 1973, the first year for which Recording Industry Association of America shipment data are available for singles.”
“In late December 2005, weekly singles sales topped CD sales for the first time, as American consumers—many of them flush with holiday gift cards and loading new MP3 players—purchased 19.9 million digital tracks but just 16.8 million albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan.”
