Digital album sales reach 100m in UK
Published Aug 3 2012, 16:46 BST | By Colin Daniels
Digital album sales have surpassed the 100 million milestone in the UK.Official Charts Company records showed that it took four years from 2006 to reach sales of 50 million and just two further years to double that total.
© WENN
© WENN
Digital sales now account for over 34% of albums sold in the UK.
Adele's 21 and Ed Sheeran's + lead the bestselling digital albums of all time in the UK, with 15 of the top 25 being British artists.
"Sales of digital albums are surging ahead as British consumers embrace the convenience, value and choice offered by online services," BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said.
"As our athletes compete against the best in the world, British artists have taken the gold and silver positions in the best-selling digital artist albums of all time, and six places in the top ten."
Overall album sales in the UK dropped by 13.8% this year, but sales of digital albums have increased by 17.3%. Digital music sales overtook physical for the first time in May.
The ten best-selling digital albums of all time in the UK, all of which have sold over 250,000 units, are:
1. Adele - 21
2. Ed Sheeran - +
3. Lady GaGa - The Fame
4. Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
5. Rihanna - Loud
6. Florence + the Machine - Lungs
7. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
8. Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More
9. Plan B - The Defamation of Strickland Banks
10. Bruno Mars - Doo-Wops & Hooligans
Watch Adele's video for 'Someone Like You' below:
With CD prices going down (HMV has a 2 for £15 offer on chart albums at the mo) Most are as cheap or cheaper than buying the download, the only benifit of downloads is that it saves space if you have a small flat/house but it's not because they are that much cheaper. The new Pink cd is out next month, £9 online shops, £8.99 to pre-order the download.
August 6th 2012 at 2:51pm
album sales are sooo low right now that anyone can reach number 1.. you only need 10.000 copies to reach UK albums chart No 1 as opposed to 50.000 a few years back...
such a shame... it's a matter of a few months before physical albums are no longer released and become a collector's item sold to niche markets...
August 5th 2012 at 11:30pm
I much prefer having the CD as if I decide I do not like the album I can sell it on and make back a bit of money I spent on it.
August 4th 2012 at 6:57pm(+2 likes)
I much prefer having a physical copy (CD) over compressed digital audio files for an album, for singles I don't mind but being a musician I can hear the ever so slight in difference quality's but at the same time doesn't bother me cos I rip all my CD's to iTunes anyway but I still love to have albums on CD.
August 4th 2012 at 5:39pm(+2 likes)
Agree with David Bates,albums now are just as cheap to buy them now,don't mind downloading odd tracks but you will beat the smell of a fresh pressed CD!
August 4th 2012 at 8:58am(+3 likes)
I agree, I also always worry about laptops/computers either being stolen or breaking down and losing the music on the device. Even though I back up the music I do download, I still worry about the vulnerability of digital music. For me, it also begs the question, where do you stand on insurance on the contents of a device if stolen?
August 4th 2012 at 10:21am
Any music purchased from iTunes is all saved to your account and can be redownloaded at any time on any other device capable of accessing iTunes...
August 4th 2012 at 12:26pm
I don't use iTunes, I only got an iPod last year for a present, prior to that I've always had Creative mp3 players. I used Amazon's mp3 store and HMVs.
August 4th 2012 at 3:16pm
Thanks for the tip though!
August 4th 2012 at 3:17pm