Digital Download Sales Gives Music Industry a Boost

Nielsen SoundScan, which is a music sales information system, has published its end-of-year report. The published document covers all point-of-purchase sales of music-related products for December 2007 to 2008. It shows that single track digital music downloads have increased by a whopping 32%, while album downloads have also seen a healthy rise of 27%. Digital album sales in particular where boosted during the holiday season by 37% compared to the same time in 2007. Overall, total digital music downloads has topped the 1 billion mark for the first time, giving a much needed boost to the music recording industry.

In the top ten selling digital tracks, Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love was number one with 3.37 million downloads, followed by the track, Low, from Flo Rida Feat featuring T-Pain (2.94 million downloads). For digital albums, Coldplay's Viva La Vida triumphed in the top ten selling digital album charts with 617,000 units; Jack Johnson's Sleep Thorugh The Static was number 2 with 325,000 units sold.

If you've been lucky enough to recieve a digital music gift card, or have downloaded music from a digital music service during the Holiday Season, you may want to read our guide on How to Create Playlists in Windows Media Player in order to better organize your music library.