Slight decrease in CD and download album sales in the US and UK

The BPI says that album sales in the UK fel by 5.25% in in the first half of 2015 (38.1m down to 36.1m). Sales of downloaded LPs actually declined faster than their physical rivals: In the first half of 2015, CD album sales in the UK fell 5.7% from 22.68m to 21.38m. In the same period, sales of digital albums dropped 6.6% to 13.86m. 

Anbd overall album sales in the US – real album sales, not counting ‘track/streaming equivalents’ – were down 4% year-on-year in the first six months of 2015… as streaming continued to soar. According to new data from Nielsen/Billboard, 116.1 million album unit sales were clocked up versus 120.9 million units in H1 2014. The growth of vinyl album sales continued: the format grew 38.4% to 5.6 million in H1 2015, taking a 5% share of CD/digital/vinyl formats in the US. In the UK, vinyl album sales shot up once again in the Jan-June period, up 56.3% to 833,137 sales in H1 2015.