Album sales: down 15% to 430 million units
CD sales: down 20% to 362 units
Digital album sales: up 32% to 62.8 units
Track sales: up 27% to 1.07 billion units
LP sales: up 92% to 1.9 million units

In 2008, growth rates for both tracks and digital albums nearly
converged around 30%. The bad news is the days of explosive growth
rates are gone. The good news is unit increases get bigger while the
growth rates drop. With no new retailer or business model on the
horizon, and with iPhone applications better at free music services
than enticing purchases, expect digital growth rates to continue their
downward trajectory.

LINK (via Coolfer)

Over a billion digital full tracks have been sold in 2008, up 28% over 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures released today.

Through Dec. 14, 1,001,000,000 digital tracks were sold in the United
States. Nielsen SoundScan projects the year will end with 1,040,000,000
tracks sold.

Seventeen percent of digital track sales this year have come from the top
200-selling tracks.

Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" was the highest-selling digital track in 2008, with 3.3 million sold.

 LINK (via Billboard)

Marketers, marketing students and those with an interest in marketing should read this AdAge article on widgets, "Widgets Are Made for Marketing, So Why Aren't More Advertisers Using Them?"

In a nutshell, the article compares the widget hype with realities
("virulence is hard to achieve") while looking at different ways to
approaching a widget (game widgets, which tend to get passed around,
versus duration widgets, which are not shared much) and technical
issues advertisers have to face.

LINK (via Coolfer)

Just what will music consumption look like in 2013?  JupiterResearch has
been criticized for being overly-optimistic on sales projections and
unrealistic about piracy, though a recent forecast points to a broader
decline for the recording industry.  Specifically, the group predicts
that digital formats will account for 41 percent of total recording
sales in the United States, up from a current estimate of 18 percent. 
In terms of total revenues, the Forrester-owned group predicts a drop
from $10.2 billion currently to $9.8 billion, based on broader declines
in core CD sales.

Actually, that decline is quite modest, and
probably still optimistic.  In 1999, recording industry sales topped
$14.6 billion, according the RIAA.  On one level, sales are
transitioning towards digital formats, though Jupiter acknowledged that
online and mobile formats will not compensate for physical declines. 
Increasingly, the question is whether consumers will embrace paid
downloading, especially as the format appears to be entering a
plateau.  On that point, Jupiter predicted that 55 percent of Americans
will pay for downloads, in some form, by 2013. 

Reaching a 50% digital share is music's equivalent to breaking the
four-minute mile (though sustained profitability would be nice, too).
And according to this IHT article, Atlantic Records
claims over half its revenues now comes from digital. In contrast,
parent company Warner Music Group's digital share in its most recent
quarter was 27%.

Julie Greenwald, president of Atlantic Records, explained how the
label did it. "It used to be that you could connect five dots and sell
a million records. Now there are 20 dots you can connect to sell a
million records."

Atlantic's digital revenues come from album and track downloads,
ring tones, ring backs, satellite radio and subscription services.

I would have though Kid Rock's digital abstinence (which ended recently,
though his catalog will be available only through Rhapsody through
February) would have killed the label's digital share, but the label
does have digital-friendly Death Cab for Cutie, and T.I.'s last album
did well at digital and probably does great ring tone and ring back
business. And there's a strong catalog that has a fading reach at
brick-and-mortar retail but plenty of viability online.

LINK (via Coolfer)

Maybe there are legs after all to that hypothesis on the return of pay-for content - the one Economist publisher Paul Rossi suggested at our Future Of Business Media conference last month. Just 12 percent of European web users paid for online content last year, but that’s due to rise to 19 percent by 2013, a new Jupiterresearch report says: “While free content will continue to dominate, as overall online audiences for all content categories continue to grow, so the number of European users willing to pay for content online will grow at an even greater rate.” That will mean paid content could pull in €5 billion in 2013, from €1.4 billion last year.

LINK (via PaidContent)

U.S. video game sales rose 18% in October, to $1.31 billion, led by sales of Nintendo's Wii console and Microsoft's "Fable II" title, according to sales data compiled by market research firm NPD Group. Overall, hardware sales were up 5% to $494.7 million; the Wii sold 803,000 units, compared to 371,000 Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) Xbox 360s and 190,000 Sony (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3s.

LINK (via DigitalMediaWire)

While consumer caution may cause a dip in electronic sales this holiday
season, Apple wrapped up its fiscal year with a 34% jump in
music-related products and services sales.

According to a recent 10-K filing
outlining its fiscal year results, sales for music products and
services jumped from $2.5 billion in 2007 to $3.34 billion this year.
This includes iTunes downloads, App Store sales and all iPod devices
and accessories.

Music sales counted towards 10% of all Apple sales for the year.

LINK (via Billboard)