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Nielsen Music 2007 Year-End Music Industry Report: Growth In Overall Music Purchases Exceeds 14%
[January 10, 2008]

Nielsen Music 2007 Year-End Music Industry Report: Growth In Overall Music Purchases Exceeds 14%


(Wireless News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
Nielsen SoundScan, the entertainment industry's data information system
that tracks point-of-purchase sales of recorded music product, Nielsen
BDS, a music performance monitoring service, and Nielsen RingScan,
which tracks mobile ringtone purchases, have announced their 2007 U.S.
year-end sales and performance monitoring data for the 52-week period
January 1, 2007 through December 30, 2007.

2007 Year End Factoids:

- Music purchases in 2007 reached 1.4 Billion, the third consecutive
year music sales have exceeded 1 billion; 1.2 billion (2006) vs. 1
billion (2005).

- Music sales exceeded 58.4 million in the final week of 2007,
representing the biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen
SoundScan. The previous record was Christmas week 2006 with 47.4
million music purchases.

- Overall Album sales (including Albums and Track Equivalent Album
sales) declined 9.5 percent compared to 2006.

- Total album sales declined 15 percent compared to 2006.

- Consistent with the previous three years, 20 percent of total album
sales occurred during the Holiday Season (last 6 weeks of year).

Digital Factoids:

- More than 840 million digital tracks were purchased during 2007; an
increase of 45 percent over 2006.

- Digital album sales reached the 50 million for 2007; up 53 percent
over the previous year and accounted for 10 percent of total album
sales compared to 5.5 percent in 2006.

- In the final reporting week of 2007 the following sales records were
broken:

- Digital track sales surpassed 42.9 million. The previous sales record
was 30.1 million, week of 12/24 -12/31/06.

- Digital album sales this week fell just shy of the two million mark
with sales of 1,920,000 sales; breaking the previous record of 1.2
million (12/31/06).

- Flo Rida s track Low feat. T-Pain set the mark for the biggest
selling week for an individual Digital Track, with sales of 467,000
(previous record was Rihanna s Umbrella at 276,000 sales). Note that
Chris Brown s Kiss Kiss track sold 277,000 downloads which also broke
the previous record held by Rihanna.

- The first time a digital song (combining all versions of the same
song) sold more than 300,000 downloads in a week. Flo Rida s song Low
feat. T-Pain is the new record holder for biggest selling week for a
Digital Song with sales of 467,000 this week. Fergie s Fergalicious
held the previous record with sales of 295,000. Timbaland s digital
song Apologize also broke the previous record with sales of 319,000
this week.

- In 2007, there were 9 different digital songs with sales that
exceeded 2 million compared to one in 2006 (Bad Day by Daniel Powter -
2,015,000).

- 41 Digital Songs exceeded the 1 million sales mark for the year
compared to 22 digital songs in 2006 and only 2 digital songs in 2005.

- Fergie was the biggest selling digital artist in 2007 with 7.5
million track sales.

- There were more than 390,000 different physical albums that sold at
least one copy over the Internet during 2007.

- Physical Internet album sales reached a new record high with sales of
30.1 million unit sales; an increase of 2 percent over 2006 year-end
total (29.1).

Best Seller Factoids:

- Josh Groban was the biggest selling solo artist, with sales greater
than 4.8 million albums and the Eagles were the biggest selling group
in 2007 with sales of 3.6 million.

- Josh Groban s Noel was the biggest selling album of the year with 3.7
million sales. It s the first time in the history of Nielsen SoundScan
that a seasonal/holiday album held the top position on the year-end
chart. Noel is also the first seasonal/holiday album to sell more than
3 million units in a year. The previous high for a seasonal/holiday
album for a year was Kenny G s Miracles: A Holiday Album back in 1994
which sold 2,986,000 copies.

Strata Factoids:

- Album sales at Non-Traditional music outlets experienced significant
growth with sales approaching the 90 million mark. Non-traditional
outlets accounted for 18 percent of all album sales, compared to 12
percent in 2006, 9 percent in 2005 and 5 percent in 2004 (4 percent in
2003).

- 40 percent of all albums purchased were at a Mass Merchant outlet
compared to 41 percent in 2006, 40 percent in 2005 and 38 percent in
2004 (35 percent in 2003 and 34 percent in 2002).

- Chain music stores for the first time accounted for less than 40
percent of all album sales; 36 percent compared to 41 percent in 2006,
45 percent in 2005 and 48 percent in 2004.

- Album sales at Independent music stores remained consistent from a
year ago; accounting for 6 percent of all album sales (7 percent in
2005 and 9 percent in 2004).

Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems (Nielsen BDS) has announced the most
played songs at radio, at video, as well as Internet music streams for
2007.

Nielsen RingScan Factoids:

- There were 220 million ringtone purchases in 2007 resulting in sales
of $567 million.

- During the last week of the year (Christmas week), ringtone purchases
increased by 22 percent over the previous week (consistent with sales
spike during the last week of 2006).

- Mastertone purchases accounted for 91 percent of all ringtone sales
in 2007.

- The top 100 Mastertone ringers sold 65.1 million, accounting for 30
percent of all ringtone sales for the year.

((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected]))

((Distributed on behalf of 10Meters via M2 Communications Ltd -
http://www.m2.com))
((10Meters - http://www.10meters.com))

Copyright 2008 Wireless News

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