Album sales in Canada were down for the third year in a row in 2014, as digital download sales fell for the first time in history.
Total album unit sales suffered a 5% decline in Canada last year, according to new Nielsen data analysed by MBW – dropping from 29.3m sales in 2013 to 27.8m in 2014.
Both digital album sales and digital track sales in Canada suffered their first unit sales decline since records began.
Following similar patterns in the UK and US markets, digital album sales dropped 5% to 10.9m in 2014.
Meanwhile, digital track sales fell by 12%, down from 116.1m to 101.7m.
The top 200 songs accounted for 23.1 million sales in 2014, compared to 28.6 million in 2013.
These falls came despite Spotify only officially launching in Canada in September 2014.
Canada is the world’s seventh-largest recorded music market, according to the IFPI, just behind Australia. Its annual revenue is around double the size of the eighth-biggest market, Italy.
Meanwhile, CD albums were down 7% to 16.5m, from a 17.6m tally in 2013.
Vinyl albums posted their biggest overall sales total in the Nielsen SoundScan era, with a sales increase of 71% over 2013.
Seven albums sold over 100,000 units in the year, led by Taylor Swift, compared to 16 albums in 2013. (See Canada’s bestseller charts for 2014 through here.)
Swift’s Shake It Off was also the sixth biggest-selling digital track in the year, as well as being the most streamed song of the second-half of the year in Canada – including audio and video on-demand services.
Nielsen only began tracking streams in the second half of 2014, and counts both video (YouTube, Vevo) and audio (Spotify, Rdio) in its data.
The total volume of of streams in the six months from July-December 2014 stood at 6.3bn, with 5.4bn on video sites and 925m on audio platforms.
Take Me To Church by Hozier was the most popular track on audio streaming services in the period, with 1.4m streams.
However, Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off racked up a huge 19m streams on video services in the half-year.
“With strong demand in digital streaming and record-setting growth in Vinyl, we continue to see music fans showing their diversity in the way they consume music,” said David Bakula, SVP Industry Insights, Nielsen Entertainment.
“With over 6 Billion songs streamed in just the last six months of 2014, as well as new services launching this year, music fans continue to enjoy huge amounts of digital music.”
NB. Nielsen’s data in Canada is for the 12-month period from December 30, 2013 through December 28, 2014
[Pictured: Bobby Bazini, whose Where I Belong was the top-selling album by a Canadian artist in Canada last year, shifting 102,000 copies]Music Business Worldwide
