Saturday, March 14, 2009

ARIA 2008 Sales Figures

There was little surprise in the release of the annual wholesale sales figures of recorded music in Australia this week. In total, physical album sales declined 12% (to $341.7m) over the past 12 months. While ARIA appear to be playing up the increase in digital sales - 35.6% (to $54.1m) there remains an overall loss of 7.91%. This is despite a 6 week period in late 2008 when there was a sudden increase in purchases due to the release of a number of popular bands albums around the same time (no doubt to enable pre Christmas purchasing).

The ARIA press release also indicates that the industry is not expecting a great change in consumer behaviour due to the economic crisis - I for one doubt this will be the case - as people's financial situations deteriorate and money needs to be kept aside for basic living expenses, there is more likely to be a move toward more cost effective means of acquiring music.

The press relase is worth reading just to note the spin doctoring.

Further Reading
ARIA, 2008 ARIA Yearly Statistics (March 2009) <http://www.aria.com.au/documents/YE12-08.pdf> at 14 March 2009

ARIA, ARIA releases 2008 wholesale sales figures (11 March 2o09) <http://www.aria.com.au/2008SalesFigures.htm> at 14 March 2009

No comments: