THE NIELSEN COMPANY & BILLBOARD’S 2012 MUSIC INDUSTRY REPORT

For Immediate Release January 3, 2013

Contact: Anna Loynes/Scoop Marketing

(818) 761-7159, aloynes@solters.com

THE NIELSEN COMPANY & BILLBOARD’S

2012 MUSIC INDUSTRY REPORT

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MUSIC PURCHASES AT ALL-TIME HIGH

SURPASS 1.65 BILLION UNIT TRANSACTIONS 

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DIGITAL SALES GAIN – ALBUMS UP 14% – TRACKS UP 5%

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NEW YORK – Nielsen SoundScan and Nielsen BDS, the entertainment industry’s leading data information systems, announced the 2012 year-end U.S. music sales figures for the 12-month period of January 2, 2012 through December 30, 2012.  Nielsen SoundScan measures U.S. point-of-sale of recorded music product.  Nielsen BDS tracks U.S. radio airplay and music streams.  Both systems power many of the Billboard charts.

For 2012, sales of albums and track equivalents are down slightly at -1.8% vs 2011.  Digital Albums are up 14% and Digital Tracks are up 5%.  CD sales declined 13%.

“Overall music purchases surpassed 1.65 billion units in 2012, up 3.1% vs. the previous record high set in 2011, driven by digital music sales, which continue be a key growth element within the market” says David Bakula, SVP Client Development, Nielsen.  “Digital Album sales are up 14.1% and Digital Track sales are up 5.1%, but despite being down 12.8%, physical is still the dominant album format.”

“The big artist stories of the year are Adele and Taylor Swift,” continues Bakula.  “Adele’s album, 21, is the first album ever to be the top seller of the year for two consecutive years and Taylor Swift’s Red has sold more than 3.1 million copies in only 10 weeks, debuting with the highest weekly sales of any title since 2002.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total music purchases (Physical Albums, Digital Albums and Digital Songs) are at an all-time high, surpassing 1.65 Billion units this year, up 3.1% vs. last year.

  • Overall Album sales (including Albums and Track Equivalent Album sales) were down 1.8% compared to 2011.
  • Total Album sales were down 4.4% in 2012 with sales totaling 316.0 million units, compared to 330.6 million in 2011.
  • 10 Albums sold more than one million units in 2012.
  • The Country genre showed the greatest gains in 2012 with sales up 4.1% compared to 2011.  Rock, which continues to be the biggest genre, was up 1.4% vs. 2011.
    • Country also saw a 38% gain in digital album sales in 2012 vs. 2011, the largest increase of any genre in the digital album format.
  • For the fifth consecutive year, more vinyl albums were purchased than any other yearin the history of Nielsen SoundScan.
    • In 2012, vinyl album sales reached 4.6 million in sales, breaking the previous record of 3.9 million LP album sales in 2011.
    • 67% of all vinyl albums were purchased at an independent music store during 2012.
    • Vinyl album sales in 2012 were up 19% compared to 2011 and accounted for 1.4% of all album sales and 2.3% of all physical album sales.
  • For the second consecutive year, Columbia Records ends the year with the largest market share among all label groups with a 9.05% album label share.

Digital Highlights

  • Digital music continues to grow, with total digital sales up 9.1% vs. 2011.
    • Digital Albums reached an all-time high with 117.7 Million units, up 14.1% vs. 2011.
    • Digital Tracks also reached an all-time high with 1.34 Billion units sold in 2012, up 5.1% vs. 2011.
  • Digital share of the total business (album + TEA) was 55.9% in 2012.
  • Digital album sales accounted for 37% of all album purchases in 2012; compared to 31% in 2011; 26% in 2010; 20% in 2009; 15% in 2008; 10% in 2007; and 5.5% in 2006.
  • While total digital album growth was 14% in 2012, there were a number of digital album genres that experienced even higher digital growth.
    • Country digital album salesà up 38%
    • Latin digital album sales à up 22%
    • Rock digital album sales à up 18%
  • For the last week of 2012 (week ending 12/30/2012), digital album sales set a new high with sales of 4.5 million, over one million units higher than the previous record week.
  • While overall digital tracks sales were up 5%, several genres showed double-digit increases. Dance/Electronic tracks are up 36%; Country is up 13%; Rock is up 11% vs. the prior year.
  • For the first time, a digital song had more than six million downloads in a calendar year and that feat was achieved by two songs this year; Gotye featuring Kimbra – “Somebody That I Used to Know” sold 6.8 million downloads and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” sold 6.5 million.  Another song just missed the six million mark, with Fun. featuring Janelle Monae’s “We Are Young” selling 5.9 million downloads.
  • In 2012, 108 songs exceeded the one million sales mark.
  • In 2012, 41 different digital songs had sales that exceeded two million (compared to 38 in 2011; 37 in 2010; 31 in 2009; 19 in 2008; nine in 2007).

Best Seller Album Highlights

  • Adele’s 21finishes the year as the biggest selling album for the second consecutive year with just over 4.4 million sales. This is the first time ever that an album has been the year’s best seller for two consecutive years. The album has now eclipsed the 10 million unit mark in just under two years.
    • 21 was also the best-selling digital album of the year, surpassing one million digital albums for the second consecutive year.  No other album has sold more than one million digital albums in any year and now 21 has done it two years in a row.
  • Taylor Swift’s Redis the year’s second best seller with over 3.1 million units sold in just 10 weeks (the album was released on 10/22).
    • Red had first-week sales of 1,208,000, the biggest weekly sales for an album since The Eminem Show sold 1,322,000 in its second week of release in 2002.

Most Played and Streamed Highlights

  • For the second year, Katy Perry ends the year as the most played artist over the airways in 2012 with more than 1.4 million spins.
  • Four out of the top 10 most played artists in 2012 had more than one million detections for the year.
  • Taylor Swift claimed the top spot as the most streamed artist in 2012 with more than 216 million streams.
  • Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” was the most streamed song and music video in 2012 with 119.8 million streams in 2012.

Strata Highlights

  • For the first time in history, more albums were sold in the Digital music stores than in any other strata.  Mass Merchants had been the largest strata for the past five years.
  • In 2012, 37% of all albums purchased were through a digital service like iTunes, Amazonmp3 or eMusic, an increase of 6 points from 2011.
  • During 2012, 29% of all album purchases occurred at Mass Merchant outlets (Walmart, Target, etc.).
  • Album sales at retail Chain stores accounted for 15% of all album sales in 2012, while 10% came from Internet/Mail Order and Venue sales and 7% occurred at Independent music stores.

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About Nielsen

Nielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.