1-4-2015
Nielsen Music's 2014 year-end music consumption report is pointing to big gains in both new-school and old-school tech. Overall, streaming consumption saw in increase of 54 percent over last years numbers and vinyl LP sales continue to defy the odds with sales up 52 percent over the previous report last year.
Streaming grew by 58 billion streams to 164 billion in 2014. David Bakula, SVP Industry Insights, Nielsen Entertainment notes, "Digital music consumption continues its robust growth, with On-Demand streaming up 54% over last year and 164 billion song streams being played in 2014." Vinyl sales have been steadily increasing for the last nine years and 2014 marks the strongest vinyl sales on-record since 1991. Vinyl was up 3.1 million units last year to 9.2 million sold.
The numbers weren't quite that rosy for music sales in general. Overall album sales were down 11 percent, single sales lost 9 percent from 2013 and digital sales were down 12 percent, or about 160 million units.
