Growth in streaming activity for holiday music may be cannibalizing album sales — leading some to question whether labels will begin paring back their physical offerings.
album, which scanned 3.7 million album copies in its debut year of 2007 and now totals 6.32 million album consumption units in the U.S.;, which scanned 2.45 million copies in its release year of 2011 and a total of 4.5 million album consumption units to date; or, going back further,, which scanned nearly 3 million copies in its 1994 debut. Those albums really stoked the genre’s sales numbers in the years they were released.
Besides lacking a big album this year, music merchandisers say the complexion of physical sales has changed, with more titles coming out in the expensive vinyl format while budget-priced CDs’ role in driving holiday sales has faced diminished floor space in discount department stores. So while merchants are realizing more revenue-per-copy thanks to vinyl’s popularity, they’re also seeing a drop in CD unit sales because of a squeeze on budget floor space.
“Some key retailers have pared back their presence in the budget business; there are fewer $5 bins on the sales floor nowadays,” offers Provenzano. Meanwhile, as more holiday albums come out on vinyl, “now that a lot of holiday music has a higher price point, it is no longer as much of an impulse item,” Provenzano adds.
For example, as of week 49 of 2017, physical holiday and seasonal album sales totaled 2.987 million copies, with 100,000 courtesy of the vinyl format. As of the 49th week of this year, total physical sales were 1.142 million, of which 637,000 were in the CD format and 503,000 vinyl, according to Luminate.
Music is generally considered impervious to economic downturns, but that doesn’t mean all genres are immune to the threat of recession, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, music merchandisers say.
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