Year-End music metrics from SoundScan and BDS
Nielsen SoundScan Canada, the entertainment industry’s data information system that tracks unit point-of-purchase sales of recorded music product, and Nielsen BDS, the music industry’s leading music performance monitoring service – which power the Billboard charts – have announced their 2009 Canadian calendar year sales and airplay monitoring data, for the 52-week period January 5, 2009 through January 3, 2010.

2009 Canadian Year-End Factoids

• Total Album sales declined 2.2% compared to 2008, continuing a trend of declining music sales in Canada.
• Increased digital growth in 2009 did not offset the decline in physical sales.
• There were 9 million album sales during the holiday season (11/9 – 12/27), down 3.2% compared to 2008.
  • Album sales during the holiday season accounted for more than 25% of the total album sales for the year (which is consistent with a year ago).
• 47% of all albums purchased were at a Mass Merchant/Non Traditional outlets compared to 42% in 2008, 37% in 2007 and 34% in 2006.
  • The increase in the Mass Merchant/Non-Traditional strata is coming directly from the year-over-year increase in digital album sales.
  • Digital album sales accounted for 14% of total album sales for the year vs. 9% in 2008.
• Retail (Chain/Indy) music stores accounted for 53% of all album sales, compared to 58% in 2008, 63% in 2007 and 66% in 2006.

Digital Factoids:

• More than 56 million digital tracks were purchased in 2009; an increase of nearly 40% over 2008 and a new record for track sales in a year.
• The top 200 digital songs accounted for 23% of all song purchases in 2009; 12.9 million sales compared to 8.2 million in 2008.
• Digital album sales increased nearly 42% compared to 2008 with sales of 4.8 million sales compared to 3.4 million in 2008.
  • The top 100 digital albums accounted for nearly 20% of all digital album sales in 2009.
• The digital share of total album sales in Canada was 13.6% in 2009, compared with 20.4% in the U.S.
• For week ending December 27th of 2009 the following digital sales records were broken:
  • Digital track sales set a new weekly high with sales surpassing the 2 million sales barrier for the first time with nearly 2.1 million digital track downloads. The previous weekly sales record was set during the final week of 2008 with 1.8 million sales.
  • Digital album sales this week broke the 150,000 mark for the first time with album sales of 173,000; breaking the previous record of 142,000 digital album sales (12/28/08).
  • Ke$ha’s Tik Tok set a new weekly sales record with 36,000 sales downloads; this was the second digital song to break 30,000 downloads for one week. The previous record was set earlier in the year (week ending 2/15/09) by Flo Rida’s Right Round which sold 34,000 downloads.
  • The top 100 digital songs for the week posted an all-time high with 586,000 sales; breaking the previous record of 457,000 during the last week of 2008.

Best Seller Factoids:

• Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream which was released just six weeks left in the year, is the biggest selling album of the year with 319,000 sales; edging Lady Gaga’s Fame (315,000).

• After missing the top 10 a year ago, Michael Buble makes it back into the top 10 albums of the year with Crazy Love as the fourth best selling album of the year; 290,000 sales.
• Michael Jackson is the biggest selling artist with album sales of 651,000 in 2009.
  • Prior to 2009, there had been just over 700,000 Michael Jackson albums purchased over the past 13 years in Canada.
  • Note that the top 4 selling artists for the year in 2008 were all groups. In 2009, 4 out of the top 5 best selling artists were solo artists.
  • The Beatles came in as the #4 overall artist in 2009 but the Beatles were the biggest selling group for 2009.
• Black Eyed Peas was the biggest selling digital artist with digital track sales surpassing 855,000 in 2009.
  • Note that 5 out of the top 10 biggest selling digital artists in 2009 are female solo artists.
• Two native Canadian artists continue to hold the top two spots as the best selling artists in Canada during the Nielsen SoundScan era: Celine Dion (7.1 million albums sold) and Shania Twain (4.2 million albums sold).
• These same two artists continue to have the biggest selling albums for Canada in the Nielsen SoundScan era; Shania Twain’s Come On Over album has sold 1.9 million units and Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk about Love album with 1.5 million sales.
• The biggest selling digital artist during the Nielsen SoundScan era is Rihanna with 1,183,000 downloads. Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga are right on their heels with download sales of 1,178,000 and1,160,000 respectively.
• The biggest selling digital song during the Nielsen SoundScan era is “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas with 344,000 downloads. Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” and “Just Dance” come in at #2 and #3 with sales of 318,000 and 287,000 respectively.
• Coldplay’s Viva La Vida continues to be the biggest selling digital album in the Nielsen SoundScan era with more than 60,000 downloads.