Digital Music Sales Fall For First Time Since the Opening of iTunes Music Store

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Posted January 4, 2014 at 6:23pm by iClarified Staff

Digital Music Sales in 2013 dropped for the first time (year-over--year) since the opening of the iTunes Music Store. Individual tracks fell the most, dropping from 1.34 billion units to 1.26 billion units, a 5.7% decrease. Album sales on the other hand only saw a .1% decline.

Overall for the full year 2013, digital track sales fell 5.7% from 1.34 billion units to 1.26 billion units while digital album sales fell 0.1% to 117.6 million units from the previous year’s total of 117.7 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The report cites the growing trend towards streaming services as a cause for the decline in sales. Executives are now banking on revenue from streaming services to offset the loss from digital download sales. Services like Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, Songza and iTunes Radio were very popular in 2013, which can obviously be seen as a reason for the drop. That trend will only continue as these services become more popular and ]expand in 2014.

While SoundScan has not yet released its annual streaming numbers numbers, so far industry executives have been reporting that the growth in streaming revenue has been offsetting the decline in digital sales revenue.

Overall changes included an 8.4% decline in Album sales, dipping to 289.4 million units from nearly 316 million units in 2012. The CD declined 14.5% to 165.4 million units, down from 193.4 million in the prior year. Vinyl continued its rise, jumping to 6 million units from the 4.55 million in racked up in 2012.

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Digital Music Sales Fall For First Time Since the Opening of iTunes Music Store

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sH23 - January 4, 2014 at 10:20pm

I have over 1000 cd's including carter family and django reinhardt. Jaco pastorius is the king of all dead guys.

gamerscul9870 - January 4, 2014 at 9:40pm

If there were more epic battle fantasy music uploaded, I would have bought it for $.99 per song because that's all I listen to unless it's radio music.

matrixmaniac - January 4, 2014 at 7:36pm

no wonder if most songs are more than 99 cents they are just too expensive. And then so many songs get bundled with albums that you can't buy them unless you take the whole album. So DRM has been replaced with other customer annoyances... it's not a surprise really. They are digging their own grave with betting on streaming. It's only a matter of time until people realize that their monthly bills will be too much to take when you have to pay for internet connection, cell phone, pay TV, music streaming, MS office, Adobe software, iTunes match, cloud services etc. etc. People will start cutting these contracts eventually...

JustSomeGuy - January 5, 2014 at 8:19pm

I feel the same way but they're good services for us. They just need to stop making certain songs as album only as well and all you said.

Onnier - January 4, 2014 at 6:57pm

I think this is happening because Apple started selling music and songs for $0.99 and now almost nothing in the iTunes Store is at that price anymore.

iClarified4Ever - January 4, 2014 at 6:37pm

Are you serious? I love music and I buy music all the time on Apple iTunes. I have a 2009 24-inch iMac and I buy music, movies, iBooks, TV shows, music videos, and podcasts. I have 1180 songs on iTunes right now. I have been a fan since it launched and use an iPod Classic and iPhone 5. I use iTunes every day and love the service.