It Was A Blue Chrsitmas For Music Even With Digital Sales

The IPod, portable music devices, and home entertainment centers we’re among the hottest sellers this holiday season. But that didn’t mean that consumers then rushed to stores or online to fill their
gifts with music.

SoundScan is reporting that physical album sales totaled 105.3
million for the six-week period ending December 24. That’s down 4.1% from a 2005 total of 109.8 million and last year was
considered by most estimates to have been the worst holiday season for music sales in memory.

When digital track, music video and singles sales are all included,
sales totaled 47.4 million units for Christmas week. That does make 2006 Christmas week sales the best week ever; up from 46.5

million units during Christmas week 2000. But 2000 was the
year that U.S. album sales peaked.

In the end, however, no matter how you crunch the numbers, digital sales are not offsetting declines in physical sales. Using SoundScan’s own album equivalency of 10
digital tracks sold – generous considering that most "albums"
have 12-14 tracks – this year’s total album sales equaled 111.4 million
units for the holiday selling period for a 2.1% decline from
last year’s equivalent total of 113.8 million albums.

For reaction from retailers read this story from Billboard.