Digital Music Sales Plummet As Streaming Services Grow

Digital Sales Tumble

With the popularity of PANDORA, SPOTIFY and RDIO vying for listeners' attention with streaming music, digital sales are taking it on the chin.

Through AUGUST, sales of digital tracks dropped 3.4% from 2012 to $974.5 million, according to NIELSEN SoundScan. Even worse, losses were 6% to 292.4 million units for the third quarter of this year.  

Digital albums also decreased. Overall, sales were down 6.1%. However, sales of old school vinyl albums rose 30% to 4.1 million units.

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