ARIA has officially released their version of the ‘State Of The Union’ for the Australian record industry. The results are mixed with a couple of surprises and more than a few ineviable outcomes. Firstly, physical albums still account for 87% of total album sales, totalling 23.5 million sales versus 3.3 million digital albums sold. Don’t let these numbers fool you though, the physical album market shrunk 31% whilst digital albums grew 36%.
The mighty single is also a mixed bag. CD singles are to no one’s surprise in total freefall. Physical sales dropped 94% in the last year alone. Digital singles, however, have shown strong growth raking in $56 million for the industry by selling 49.2 million tracks. That’s an increase of 36% in volume and 47% in revenue.
Overall total physical sales are down 19%, with even music videos and DVD sales declining by 33%. It’s not all bad news however – the Australian record market was worth $384 million in 2010 with 81.5 million units sold. That’s an increase of 9% in volume but a decline of 14% in dollar value.
These numbers make an industry apocalypse seem pretty far off. People are buying more music than they did last year, they’re just not paying as much for it. Who knows what 2011 will hold the our local industry? ARIA CEO Dan Rosen seems to think it will be a blockbuster year thanks to releases this year from local acts such as Delta Goodrem, The Living End, and Powderfinger’s Greatest Hits Record. He also points to overseas acts such as Foo Fighters, The Strokes, U2, and various trashy pop stars set to release albums in 2011 and who will also help contribute to a good year.
However, with EMI defaulting on a loan and now in the hands of Citigroup it’s unlikely to be quite as rosy as Dan would have us believe. Sony Music has put its money on a new streaming service called Music Unlimited which it has just launched in Australia as a way of increasing revenue. Previous attempts at that model have not gone particularly well but it remains to be seen how a record company fares in the market. As for the others, well it’s (shrinking) business as usual.
