Petteri Pyyny
21 Oct 2004 15:22
The official CD sales figures in the Unites States showed that the slump in CD sales that has laster for five years now, has finally ended. The CD sales figures for the first half of year 2004 were 10.2 percent higher than they were in first half of 2003.
Despite the jump, the sales figures were still down 4.3 percent compared to the first half of year 2001, according to the statistics released by the RIAA. Music industry analysts said that the rise in CD sales is down the fact that people are once again being more interested about the music, mostly due the iPod phenomenom in the US and also because music industry has finally started improving its products, by offering more music outside traditional "top 40 -format". This can also be found out from the fact that by comparing the top 50 CDs of year 2003's first half to the top 50 CDs in 2004's first half, the sales figures were down by 16.7 percent -- a clear indication that while people buy more CDs, they buy from wider selection than before.
Also, the sales of DVD music videos jumped by whopping 100 percent, from 5.6 million units in 2003 to 11.2 million units this year.
Source: LA Daily News