UK Album Sales Not So Good in 2012, Down More Than 11%
With the numbers for 2012 in the books, it was not a good year for the UK. Annual sales of albums dropped by more than 10% last year. The big problem? A 19.5% slump in the sales of physical CDs.
Even though digital album sales were up by 14.8% and 6% growth in digital singles (pushing things to a record high), the overall volume of albums (digital and physical) shrunk by 11.2%.
To be fair, 2011 was extraordinarily good due to the success of Adele’s 21. But no one ever likes to see year-over-year shrinkage. And with the We Are English feel-goodness of the Olympics, the industry was hoping to see a spike in music sales. Bope.
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