2011 record year for singles sales

Source: MW

10:59 | Tuesday December 20, 2011

 

This year the singles market has thrived as Official Charts Company figures reveal an increase on 2010’s record-breaking figures.

 

In 2011 more than 164 million singles have been sold in the UK, beating last year’s 161.8 million sales.

 

In 2004 just 32 million singles were sold in comparison and since then the market has seen a steady year-on-year increase - although the figures take into account both official single releases and downloaded album tracks.

 

 

The average number one single sale in 2011 is 93,161 (as of December 4) up on the same period of 2010 (91,980).

 

Rihanna and Calvin Harris collaboration We Found Love is the biggest-selling single of the year (as of December 20) having already been certified Gold (400,000 copies) by the BPI in November and is still selling well as it sits at number 5 in the midweek chart.

Rihanna and Calvin Harris collaboration We Found Love is the biggest-selling single of the year (as of December 20) having already been certified Gold (400,000 copies) by the BPI in November and is still selling well as it sits at number 5 in the midweek chart.

 

Thats hardly accurate!

Great to see record sales STILL increasing :heart: this year has been so great for music :D (Ok, that might not be completely true with the number of songs I dislike :lol: Am looking at you Mars, Bieber, Brown and 1D :drama:) The next question is will sales keep on going up or, like in the previous decade, take a real tumble?

 

And since when was WFL the best selling single of the year :teresa: Will MW ever stop making mistakes? :lol:

That huge mistake about We Found Love makes me wonder if the whole article itself is correct

MW are terrible with their inaccuracies...i would personally love a job with them as chart data archiever - would do a better job than the person who does it for them!! :lol:

 

Sinlge sales were far further ahead by the end of summer, seems that all these one week no1s since summer have DECREASED overall sales. The average single sales will be well over 100k by the end of this weeks sales when MWs is added!!

That huge mistake about We Found Love makes me wonder if the whole article itself is correct

Even by their standards that mistake is embarrassingly bad.

Even by their standards that mistake is embarrassingly bad.

 

I was going to post this in the sales thread, but it would get lost in there, it just deserves a topic of its own. :D

 

How on earth did they miss Adele :drama: unless they were talking for the whole month of November

I'm actually going to call the whole article BS - unless sales threads are BS - either way

 

If you look at many of the sales threads, this year, I think nearly everyone of them has since a massive sales increase to the week-year before. There is absolutely no way that sales would only be 3 million ahead of last year!

I'm actually going to call the whole article BS - unless sales threads are BS - either way

 

If you look at many of the sales threads, this year, I think nearly everyone of them has since a massive sales increase to the week-year before. There is absolutely no way that sales would only be 3 million ahead of last year!

 

 

I just wonder if Someone Like You total sales have been made up now. HA

HOW can they possibly say Rihanna has the top selling single? Good god.

It's not even at #5 in the midweeks either.

I believe the article myself, though by single they might mean track that has been downloaded as a digital single rather than cherry picked from the album. That's where the majority of Someone Like You's sales came from, although I guess the Brit Awards version was a single.

Surely most of "Moves Like Jagger"'s sales come from its single (as it wasn't really on an album until they repackaged Hands All Over following MLJ's success) therefore putting it higher than Rihanna.

 

MW have certainly got their facts wrong!

That is not correct in ANY context. The only thing I can think of is it's the highest selling single currently in the top 10, but why would they be saying that? And it's sold FAR more than 400k, although I suppose it may not have actually been certified platinum yet.

 

Whole article looks bullshit. I agree there's no way the overall increase can be that low when the weeks have consistently been close to or over 10% up on the corresponding week in 2010.

Edited December 20, 201113 yr by Michael Bubré

There is absolutely no way that sales would only be 3 million ahead of last year!

They mean that by the end of 2010, 161.8 million singles had been sold, but there are two more weeks of this chart year for the 2011 total to increase further :)

While the Rihanna mistake was indeed absurd, I can at least say that singles sales are up on last year.

 

With 2 weeks still to go, there have already been 8.7m more sales than in the whole of 2010, though thanks to Little Mix's 'failure', sales are down 8.5% on this week in 2010.

Interesting to note that the increase isn't as great as previous years and we are entering a plateau in single download sales.

 

2008 115.1m

2009 152.7m.

2010 161.8m

2011 164m*

 

* Minus final sales period.

Interesting to note that the increase isn't as great as previous years and we are entering a plateau in single download sales.

 

2008 115.1m

2009 152.7m.

2010 161.8m

2011 164m*

 

* Minus final sales period.

 

The increase between 2010 and 2011 is likely to be greater than that between 2009 and 2010...

Interesting to note that the increase isn't as great as previous years and we are entering a plateau in single download sales.

 

2008 115.1m

2009 152.7m.

2010 161.8m

2011 164m*

 

* Minus final sales period.

 

Like you say, the 2011 number is incomplete. There are millions more sales to be added to that.

If it was highest selling single, going by versions of the song, the single version of Party Rock Anthem has the highest sales of the year on iTunes, so I would expect it to be that overall too.