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Thursday March 24, 2011 |
Nielsen Soundscan releases annual music sales figures
for the United States in the first week of the new year and for Canada
one month later. This year Nielsen released the U.S. figures, but
nearly three months later, there
has still not been a public release of the Canadian figures. However, a
Globe
and Mail story over the weekend included the data, which confirms
that the Canadian digital market grew faster than the U.S. market in
2010. Last year, digital music sales grew by 19.8% in Canada,
while the U.S. market was basically
flat, with just 1% growth. As
the chart below demonstrates, this marks five straight years in which
the Canadian digital market has grown faster than the U.S.:
Year
|
Canada
|
United
States
|
2010
|
20%
|
1%
|
2009
|
38%
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8%
|
2008
|
58%
|
27%
|
2007
|
73%
|
45%
|
2006
|
122%
|
65%
|
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Tuesday September 28, 2010 |
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Nielsen Soundscan reports
that Canadian digital music sales grew outpaced the U.S. during the
first six months of 2010. This continues a longstanding trend as
Canadian sales have grown faster than the U.S. each year since 2006.
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Thursday February 04, 2010 |
Nielsen Soundscan has just released the Canadian music sales figures for 2009. Notwithstanding the regular claims that the Canadian digital music market cannot develop without copyright reform, the Canadian market grew faster than the U.S. market for the fourth consecutive year. As the chart below demonstrates, digital music sales have grown faster in Canada than in the U.S. in every year since 2006:
While this does not suggest that the market is thriving - a down economy with more competition for the entertainment dollar it is a tough market - it does confirm yet again that attempts to link copyright reform to the development of a Canadian digital market are not borne out by the facts. Indeed, Canada has consistently grown faster than the United States (from an admittedly lower starting point given that digital music stores arrived later in Canada).
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Wednesday August 26, 2009 |
CRIA's Graham Henderson has posted an op-ed in the Georgia Straight in which he repeats many of his comments from an earlier copyright consultation roundtable. Henderson points to U.S. sales and new services Europe such as Spotify and Nokia's Comes With Music to support his claim is that Canada is falling far behind its counterparts in the digital music sales and services. In Canada, he says the choice is just between iTunes and illegal (it is rather amazing to see the person who launched Puretracks now ignore it).
Yet Henderson's claims simply don't stand up to scrutiny. First, digital music sales as a percentage of total sales in Canada is ahead of every major European country. While the U.S. is indeed ahead of Canada, the IFPI reports that Canada is ahead of France, Britain, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Russia. Canada also leads countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa (percentage of digital sales are highest in countries where physical sales are virtually non-existent such as Indonesia and China). In fact, of the top 20 global markets for recorded music, the IFPI says that Canada ranks 5th for the percentage of digital sales. Overall, Canada's digital market stands 7th worldwide, while ranking 6th for all recorded music - in other words, about what you would expect. Not exactly the laggard that CRIA claims.
Second, Canada trails the U.S. in the digital sales as a percentage of total sales, but digital music sales growth in Canada has outperformed the U.S. for the past three years according to Nielsen Soundscan data. Indeed, the IFPI notes that Canada's growth rate is ahead of the global average. In comparing with the U.S., Canada is starting from a lower base, but Apple iTunes launched much later in Canada and it has failed to seriously target French language music sales (effectively cutting out a chunk of the Canadian market).
Third, recent reports note that services like Spotify are promoted by the major labels who hold an ownership stake, but artists actually receive very little. Moreover, Canada has been home to new services such as SpiralFrog, which launched in Canada before the U.S.
Fourth, Canada's private copying levy has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for personal, non-commercial copying that may include downloading. Given that revenue, it should come as little surprise to find that many groups representing artists are focused on retaining or expanding the levy as their key issue, not the reforms promoted by CRIA. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareWednesday August 26, 2009 |
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