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Thursday, January 5, 2012

Business US Music Sales Increased 6.9% in 2011

Posted by Dave Segal on Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:16 AM

But independent-label sales accounted for only 12.1 percent of the total. Hmm. I wonder how these stats would look if non-Soundscan stats were included. Surely most indie sales occur in establishments that don't report to it. Still, these percentages don't fill one with optimism about the taste of the American music consumer. From Hypebot:

Overall U.S. music sales rose 6.9% in 2011, as album sales increased for the first time since 2004, according to Soundscan. Digital powered the increase, with sales of album downloads up 19.5% over 2010. But for all the talk here and elsewhere about the ascendancy of independent music, indies accounted for just 12.1% of U.S. music sales last year. Here's how independents did alongside the 4, or if the sale of EMI to UMG passes regulators, 3 major label groups:

% Of U.S. Music Sales In 2011

1. Universal Music Group - 29.9%
2. Sony Corp. - 29.3%
3. Warner Music Group - 19.1%
4. EMI Group - 9.6%
5. Indies 12.1%

Comments (9) RSS

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Pirating music is easier than ever - I guess this proves that the music industries cries were B.S for sure now. People will still purchase music.

Posted by tigntink on January 5, 2012 at 12:21 PM

Just think of how much more we'll sell when the majority of the United States is locked up for piracy!

Posted by undead ayn rand on January 5, 2012 at 12:59 PM

Adele saves the music industry!

Posted by JonnyH on January 5, 2012 at 1:12 PM

I'm pretty sure I am responsible for that 19.5% increase in album downloads. I SAVED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY!

Posted by sisyphusgal on January 5, 2012 at 1:19 PM

Adele & Michael Buble are the best selling artists in the U.S.

Posted by Keekee on January 5, 2012 at 3:37 PM

I think your speculation about indie stores not reporting to soundscan would have been relevant abut 10 years ago but not so much now. There are a few stores around the country selling records and not reporting to soundscan but most of those stores are long gone now.

Posted by metardtard on January 5, 2012 at 3:39 PM

When I worked at Silver Platters, (one of the biggest music merchandisers in the NW) they were not Soundscan members. That was a while ago, so thangs may have changed.

Posted by Keekee on January 5, 2012 at 10:13 PM

This is somewhat mis-leading as WEA (ADA), SBME (RED) and UMGD (Fontana) all have second distributors devoted to selling indie labels like Merge, Subpop, Glassnote, Metal Blade, etc.

So, indie labels represent a great deal more of the business than this simplistic ranking

Posted by mfratt on January 6, 2012 at 7:48 AM

I buy GBH records as often as I can. My attempt to keep it all balanced.

Posted by Samanthal on January 6, 2012 at 11:51 AM