Record week for singles downloads in Britain
The digital music industry is booming. In Britain last week, the download singles sales record was broken, proving that there are still some people out there who don’t just want music for free. Analysts had been speculating that the era of singles sales was all but over, but with downloads becoming increasingly popular, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
An incredible 1.7 million downloads were sold last week, according to figures released by the Official UK Charts Company. The number one spot was taken by Leona Lewis, whose single “Bleeding Love” sold 218,000 copies, about half of which were downloads.
Despite grim predictions about the use of P2P filesharing software killing singles sales, the industry has been given a new injection of life. The doubters have been proved wrong.
“Just three years ago, skeptics forecast the death of the single but instead singles have gone from strength to strength. New digital music services have combined with existing music stores to give music fans unprecedented choice as to how they discover, sample and buy new music,” said Chief Executive of the British Phonographic Industry Geoff Taylor.
The good news for the music industry is that the singles sales appear to be about balanced between physical sales and downloads.
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