New figures on U.S. music sales from Nielsen SoundScan show the music industry is still facing declining revenue, as sales of traditional music CDs declined 19.3 percent during the first half of 2007 to 205.7 million units. Digital music sales, however, continue to see strong growth, with digital music sales increasing 50 percent during the first half of 2007, compared to the first half of 2006. However, the revenue from growing digital sales isn’t enough to offset the losses from declining CD sales.
During the first half of 2007, SoundScan reports that U.S. consumers purchased 417.3 million digital music tracks. Sales of digital albums were also up 60 percent to 23.5 million units.
