Coldplay, Adele Make 2011 Record Breaking Year For Digital Album Sales


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Chris Martin, Coldplay (Photo: Live4ever)




Big selling LPs from the likes of Adele and Coldplay have made 2011 a record breaking year for digital album sales, with this year’s total so far already surpassing 2010’s figures.

Recently, Coldplay’s ‘Mylo Xyloto‘ enjoyed the most amount of digital sales ever in the first week of release, with 80,000 online copies being sold, which accounted for 40% of its units shifted.

Meanwhile, Adele‘s ‘21‘ is unsurprisingly the biggest digital seller of the year, and also holds the record for the highest number of digital album sales of all time, comfortably ahead of nearest rival Lady Gaga.

BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor said: “It’s encouraging to see such strong sales in the digital albums market before the Christmas gifting seasons gets properly underway. For the last five consecutive years, the final week of the year has been the biggest in terms of digital album sales, as consumers spend digital music gift vouchers received at Christmas and try out legal digital music services on their new iPods, tablets and laptops.”

“In the last week of 2010, digital album sales topped a record 800,000. This year we may see the one million weekly sales barrier broken for the first time, despite the adverse impact of illegal sites and tough economic conditions. Music fans have more ways than ever to buy music and a great selection of exciting new albums to look forward to before the end of the year.”

According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), 21.3 million digital albums have been sold in 2011, a figure which represents 26.2% of all sales.


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