Nielsen Soundscan Results of 2011

Nielsen Soundscan went ahead and unveiled some great interesting facts from data they have been collecting over the last year:

- U.S. album sales were up by 1% in 2011.
- Overall music unit sales grew by 6.9% last year, crossing 1.6 billion units for the first time.
- Digital sales continued to set new records, as 2011 saw a new record of 1.271 billion songs sold digitally, an 8.5% increase from the year before.
- Digital album sales grew by 19.5% in 2011 to reach 103.1 million, a jump from 86.3 million in 2010.
- vinyl sales grew again in 2011, with a 36.3% increase from 2.8 million to 3.9 million.

Nielsen Soundscan also broke down sales by location/market:

- In 2011, New York City and Los Angeles easily the top two sales markets, followed by Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
- In New York, 13.7 million physical albums were sold last year, with 8.6 million digital albums sold as well.

Looking at the breakdown of sales by genre:

- Jazz music saw the biggest growth in 2011, with a 26.2% increase over 2010,
- 16.2% increase for New Age.
- 15% growth for Electronic music.
- Soundtracks saw the biggest decline in 2011, with a 19.4% drop in sales
- 4.3% decline for Latin music and a
- 4.2% drop in R&B sales.

Record label breakdown:

- Universal Music Group remains the #1 label across all categories, with the biggest market share of both physical and digital releases.
- UMG had a 29.85% share of the overall album sales in 2011, a slight decline from 2010.
- Sony Music, which increased its share to 29.29%, closing the gap between the two largest labels.
- Warner Music Group had a 19.13% share of total albums, followed by
- EMI with 9.62%.
- All other labels combined for a 12.11% share of the market, increasing their share just over 1% compared to 2010.

Top runners for albums sales in 2011:

- Adele was also named the best selling artist (overall in 2011) with 6.744 million albums sold in total.
- Justin Bieber was second with 3.393 million albums sold (his Under The Mistletoe was the #8 seller in 2011).
- Michael Buble, Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne round out the top five.
- Adele also dominated the digital categories with the best-selling digital song and album of 2011.

Soundscan also unveiled the top albums overall since its formation.  Current Top 10 albums of all time for the SoundScan era are:

1. Metallica – Metallica (15,735,000)
2. SHANIA TWAIN – Come On Over (15,513,000)
3. ALANIS MORISSETTE – Jagged Little Pill (14,714,000)
4. BACKSTREET BOYS– Millennium (12,168,000)
5. THE BEATLES – 1 – (11,985,000)
6. Soundtrack – The Bodyguard (11,829,000)
7. SANTANA – Supernatural (11,772,000)
8. CREED – Human Clay (11,574,000)
9. N SYNC – No Strings Attached (11,122,000)
10. CELINE DION – Falling Into You (10,790,000)

The biggest selling artists of the SoundScan era are:

1. GARTH BROOKS (68,561,000)
2. The Beatles (63,299,000)
3. MARIAH CAREY (53,612,000)
4. Metallica (53,170,000)
5. Celine Dion (51,492,000)
6. GEORGE STRAIT (43,310,000)
7. EMINEM (41,166,000)
8. TIM MCGRAW (40,169,000)
9. ALAN JACKSON (38,860,000)
10. PINK FLOYD (37,228,000)