The format of music has been evolving over the years, from wax cylinders back in the day, to the CD format, and now the digital format, but could the digital format be peaking? Well according to a report from Billboard, it would seem as though digital music sales have seen a slight dip in 2013, which is a pretty big deal considering that this is the first time that digital music sales have seen a decrease ever since iTunes was first launched back in 2003. The report specifically cites the sales of individual songs which has dropped to 1.26 billion downloads, a decrease of about 5.7% from 2012’s figures.
However as far as whole album purchases are concerned, the drop was not as back and only experienced a 0.1% drop overall from 2012. Given how connected we are these days and with almost everyone owning a smartphone, tablet, or MP3 player, we doubt that the digital format is going to go away, at least not anytime soon, which has led to speculation that perhaps streaming could be the way of the future, and that maybe purchasing individual songs might not be as attractive as with the potential of being able to stream them for free.
So how does this explain why album sales has not taken such a huge hit? Well it could be that fans of the artists’ singles might decide to purchase the entire album, rather than an individual song. That could be a possibility, but what do you guys think? Could it be that streaming is the way of the future and that purchasing individual songs could be on its way out?