Nielsen Music Q3 Sales Analysis: More Streaming, Less Selling Trend Continues

Still Trending

The NIELSEN MUSIC Q3 data, covering the nine-month period ending SEPTEMBER 28th, confirm that streaming is still on the rise while sales continues to drop. Weekly on-demand Audio streams surpassing 8.3 billion for the week ending SEPTEMBER 28th, the highest single week of audio streaming total in history. On-demand Audio streams have surpassed 287 billion streams so far in 2017, a 59.4% increase over the same time period in 2016. with Total Audio consumption (Albums + Track Equivalent Albums + Audio on-demand Streaming Equivalent Albums) up 10% over last year.

Overall on-demand streams (including video) have surpassed 442 billion streams this year, an increase of 40.4%. Total Music consumption (Albums + Track Equivalent Albums + On-Demand Streaming Equivalent Albums) is up by 11.1% vs. the same period last year.

Concurrently, music ownership continued to decline, with Album sales down 18.3%, Album sales + Track Equivalent Albums down -19.6%, Digital Album sales falling -19.5%), as well as Digital Track sales (-23.1%) and Physical Album sales (-17.3%). The lone exception: Vinyl Albums, which are up 3.1% for the year and now represent nearly 14% of all Physical Album purchases, which is an all-time high.

Radio continues to be the leading source for music discovery in the U.S, with 72% of Americans of online music streamers listening to some form of radio, according to NIELSEN’s 2017 MUSIC 360 REPORT. Additionally, 37% of music listeners say that one of the things they like most about listening to traditional radio are the DJs.

For more details, download the NIELSEN 2017 MUSIC 360 REPORT highlights here.          

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