UK singles sales top 100m in 2012

Source: MW

Tim Ingham

 

 

Sales of individual singles have moved past the 100 million mark in the UK this year.

 

According to Official Charts Company data, the magic number was reached in last week's sales period (week 30).

 

3,142,600 singles were sold in total in the week, 4.6% down on the previous week's sales.

 

However, that was still enough to tip 2012's total singles sales up to 100,925,796. That's 7.8% above the total for last year at this stage, when total singles sales hit 93,621,302.

 

However, the good news story in singles - made up of almost totally digital transactions - is not reflected in the world of albums.

 

According to the Official Charts Company data, total album sales have hit 48,274,176 this year so far, 12.7% down on year-to-date sales at this stage in 2011.

 

Florence & The Machine currently sit atop the Official UK Singles Chart, with Plan B's Ill Manors taking the No.1 spot on the albums chart.

Good news in the singles, the last MW edition i got in WHSmith said singles had reached 94 million so its great news id say they will pull ahead further by december. Albums are juist dire and digital albums arent selling anywhere near as much as they should to displace the lost sales - its like on average 25-35% of sales are digital!!

great news on singles, the album sales drops are to be expected for several reasons (none of them to do with pirating, charges levelled against the cassette and cd in the past):

 

why buy an album when you can cherry pick off the best tracks? (a main reason album sales were so high was because you couldnt buy individual tracks)

 

we've been in a recession for years now...singles are cheaper!

 

record company behaviour: get you to buy the same album twice by sticking on extra tracks a year later. This is a complete rip-off, and it puts you off buying albums by certain acts knowing that if you wait a year it'll have more tracks for the same price. Back in the 60's big stars used to release an album a year (or in the case of the godlike Beatles TWO a year, few of which contained the 3 or 4 singles released during the year!) Why do acts insist on flogging albums for years, just wait 6 months do some more tracks and call it a new album! Much as I love Gaga, she's flogged two overlong albums in a period when she could have had 3 perfectly brilliant single albums of 12 tracks. Or Take That, Katy Perry, and every other act thats done the extremely annoying "extended version". I ended up buying the Take That album twice (on download, then cd) and I refused to pay a 3rd time for a few bonus tracks. I suggest a boycot of this practice....:)

 

just a thought! cheers :)