The sky is falling

with apologies to Chief Vitalstatistix:

ARIA’s half year figures for 2008 show that sales of recorded music are still falling – down 4% on the corresponding period last year.

But guess what, the decline in sales of physical copies is almost all set off by the rise in digital sales: 12 million digital tracks up from 8 million for the 6 month period last year.  

According to ARIA:

“… figures which demonstrate the beginning of a remarkable transition to a whole new economy that is still only in its infancy.”

Perhaps in a sign of gloom for music industry executives, a lot of these downloads were single tracks rather than albums, but digital albums still increased by 55%.

ARIA press release here; full stats here.

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