The Nielsen Company & Billboard's 2010 Music Industry Report (2010 Year-end Factoids)

Nielsen SoundScan, the entertainment industry's data information system that tracks unit point-of-purchase sales of recorded music product and Nielsen BDS, the music industry's leading music performance monitoring service- which power many of the Billboard charts- have announced the 2010 calendar year sales and airplay monitoring data for the 52-week period January 4, 2010 through January 2, 2011.

2010 Year-End Factoids

• Music purchases reached the 1.5 Billion mark for the third consecutive year. 1.5 billion in 2010; 1.6 billion in 2009; 1.5 billion in 2008 (1.4 billion in 2007; 1.2 billion in 2006; 1 billion in 2005).
• Music purchases reached 60 million during week ending December 26, 2010, making it the third biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The biggest sales week in Nielsen SoundScan history was set during the same week in 2008 with 65 million music purchases.
• Overall Album sales (including Albums and Track Equivalent Album sales) declined 9.5% over 2009.
• Total album sales declined 12.7% over 2009.
• There were 240 million physical album sales in 2010; a decline of 19% over 2009.
• The Rap genre was the only genre that experienced growth over the previous year; an increase of 3% in sales.
• The only genre (other than Rap) that did not see a double digit decline was Country, which is down 5% over 2009.
• For the third consecutive year, more vinyl albums were purchased in 2010 (2.8 million) than any other year in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous record was in 2009 with 2.5 million LP album sales.
  • Note that 71% of all vinyl albums were purchased at an independent music store during 2010.
  • Vinyl album sales in 2010 were up 14% compared to 2009 and accounted for 1% of all album sales.
• The Columbia/Epic label group ends the year with the largest album market share among all label groups with a 10.96 share.

Digital Factoids:

• Digital music accounts for 46% of all music purchases in 2010; up from 40% in 2009 and 32% in 2008.
• Digital track sales break the 1 BILLION sales mark for the 3rd straight year with 1,172,000,000 digital track sales in 2010. The previous record was 1,160,000,000 digital track purchases during 2009.
• Once again, digital album sales reached an all-time high in 2010 with more than 86 million in sales (up from 76 million in 2009); an increase of 13%.
  • Digital album sales accounted for more than 1 out of every 4 album purchases (26%) in 2010; compared to 20% in 2009, 15% in 2008, 10% in 2007 and 5.5% in 2006.
• For the December 26th reporting week of 2010 the following digital sales record was broken:
  • Digital album sales this week set a new high with sales of 2.8 million sales; breaking the previous record of 2.6 million (12/27/09).
• "California Gurls" by Katy Perry tops the chart for best selling digital song in 2010 with 4.4 million downloads. Train's song "Hey, Soul Sister" comes in right behind with 4.3 million sales.
• Five digital songs broke the 4 million sales mark in 2010. There were 4 songs that achieved this mark in 2009.
• In 2010, 37 different digital songs had sales exceeding 2 million compared to 31 in 2009; 19 in 2008; and nine in 2007.
• 86 Digital Songs exceeded the 1 million sales mark for the year compared to 89 in 2009; 71 digital songs in 2008; 41 in 2007; 22 in 2006; and only two digital songs in 2005.
• Eminem is the biggest selling digital artist in 2010 with more than 15.5 million track sales during the year. This marks the biggest one year digital download track total by an artist for one year.
  • In 2009, Lady Gaga had more than 15.2 million and in 2008, Rihanna was the biggest selling digital artist with 9.9 million track sales.
• In 2010, nine different artists broke the 10 million digital track sales barrier compared to four artists in 2009.
• There were more than 397,000 different physical albums that sold at least one copy over the Internet during 2008 compared to 450,000 in 2008 and 390,000 in 2007.

Best-Selling Album Factoids:

• Eminem's Recovery finishes the year as the biggest selling album with more than 3.4 million in sales.
  • Note that Eminem is the first artist to have the best selling album of the year twice since the inception of Nielsen SoundScan. (Eminem Show in 2002 with 7.6 million sales).
  • Recovery also finishes the year as the biggest digital album of the year with 852,000 sales. The biggest one year total for a digital album and is the 2nd most downloaded album of all time; just 30,000 downloads behind Lady Gaga's Fame.
  • Due to the success of Recovery, Eminem jumps 3 positions to the 7th best selling artist in the history of Nielsen SoundScan.
  • Eminem is the only Rap artist in the top 20 best-selling artists in the Nielsen SoundScan era.
  • With nearly 16 million track downloads in 2010, Eminem jumps up five positions to #4 on the most downloaded artists of all time.

• For the second time in three years, Taylor Swift is the biggest selling artist for 2010 with more than 4.4 million album sales for the year.
  • If it wasn't for the passing of Michael Jackson in 2009, Taylor Swift would have been the best selling artist for three consecutive years; she came in second behind Michael in 2009 with 4.6 million album sales and was the best selling artist in 2008.
  • Note that Taylor Swift has sold more than 4 million album sales for three consecutive years; the only artist to sell 4+ million albums each of the last three years.
  • Speak Now in the best selling Internet album in 2010 with 185,000 sales.

• Taylor Swift ends the year as the most played artist over the airways in 2010 with more than 1.1 million spins; edging out another country act, Lady Antebellum, by 1,000 spins.
• Lady Antebellum finishes the year as the biggest selling group of 2010 with more than 3.8 million album sales.
  • Lady Antebellum's album Need You Now finishes the year as the top selling physical album with 2.7 million sales.
  • The song "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum is the most played song of the year with 600,000 spins over the airways.

• Metallica's self titled album remains on top as the best selling album in the Nielsen SoundScan era with more than 15.6 million album sales.
• Garth Brooks continues to be the best selling artist in the Nielsen SoundScan era with more than 68.5 million album sales; 6 million more album sales than The Beatles.
• Susan Boyle once again has the biggest selling album during the "holiday season" - The Gift is the best seller of the 2010 holiday season and her debut album, I Dreamed A Dream, was the best seller of the 2009 holiday season.

Holiday Season Factoids (11/8 - 12/26/10):

• Overall album sales during the 2010 holiday season were down 1.6% this year with sales of 71.6 million sales.
• Similar to a year ago, album sales during the "holiday season" accounted for 22% of all album sales for the year.

2010 Strata Factoids:

• 33% of all albums purchased were at a Mass Merchant outlet (Walmart, Target, etc.).
• 26% of all albums were purchased through a digital service such as iTunes, Amazonmp3, eMusic, etc.
• 23% of all albums were purchased at Chain outlets (Best Buy, etc.).
• 8% of all albums were purchased at Independent music stores.
• 7% of all albums were purchased through an e-commerce retailer, such as Amazon and many others.