Paid Music Downloads On The Decline, Vinyl Sales Increase

A couple of years ago, the download of music (at least legally) was pretty high and climbing, but according to a recent report from Nielsen, it looks like music downloads are actually on the decline. The latest numbers gathered by Nielsen have revealed that paid downloads for albums and songs have declined by 9% and 12% respectively.

However interestingly enough despite the decline in paid music downloads, Nielsen found that the sales of vinyl music have actually increased. For 2014, vinyl sales were at 9.2 million which is a 52% increase from 2013 and the highest ever since SoundScan had started tracking its sales from back in 1991.

In a way it’s a bit ironic that such an old format is slowly starting to trump that of a newer format, although to be fair there are some who argue that vinyl produces better quality audio compared to digital. Some believe that it has a certain warmth and tone that is just lost in the digital editing process, but we suppose it really depends on the type of music one listens to.

The decline of music downloads isn’t too surprising. Earlier last year there were reports that digital music sales was on a decline and a few months ago, Apple themselves had experienced a 13% decline in music sales, which might explain why the company had acquired Beats and in the process, Beats Music. That being said are you surprised by either of these revelations?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Audio
Tags: Music