Mid-Year Nielsen Report Finds Streaming Up, Sales Down

Nielsen has released its mid-year report for the 6-month period from December 29, 2014 through June 28, 2015.

Key notes include on-demand music streams up 92 percent with Video On-Demand streaming leading the way (+109 percent) and Audio On-Demand Streaming also experiencing significant growth (+74 percent). Those stats are from AOL, Beats, Cricket, Google Play, MediaNet, RDIO, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify, Xbox Music, and YouTube/VEVO.

Digital album sales remain virtually flat (-.1-percent) at 53.7 million, whereas digital track sales are down 10.4 percent.

Overall total units are down 4 percent (116.1 million over 120.9 million last year).

Physical CD sales are down 10 percent at 56.6 million, whereas LP/vinyl sales are up 38 percent with Taylor Swift‘s 1989 leading the way with 33,500. The majority of those physical albums are sold non-traditionally (internet, venue, direct-to-consumer) whereas mass merchant and chain stores declined in sales 18.2 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively.

Billboard‘s 2015 mid-year charts, compiled by Nielsen, include Swift and Meghan Trainor at No. 1 and No. 6, respectively for both U.S. album sales and combined sales+TEA+SEA. Interestingly, Swift maintains the top spot even while her on-demand audio streams are 188,000 compared 409 million from Drake‘s No. 2 stats, due to her highly publicized withdrawal from audio streaming sites.

Full report below.

• • •