Physical music sales have fallen by 48.8% in Canada for the first six months of 2020.
The slump was revealed in the mid-year report from Nielsen Music/MRC data. A 26.2% pre-Covid sales deficit by March deepened to a 48.8% year-to-date loss by June 4.
Vinyl sales were down by 28.5% year-on-year for the period to June 4.
However, audio streams were up 16.6% year-on-year to over 42 billion for the first half of 2020. Total album-equivalent audio consumption was up 5.7% for the same period.
The streaming market was helped by new releases from The Weeknd, Justin Bieber and Eminem.
Highlighting the power of TikTok, Roddy Ricch’s The Box topped all tracks with 82 million on-demand streams. TikTok favourite Doja Cat ranked 12th with 41 million streams for Say So.
During lockdown, country music was the big winner with a 22.7% gain in audio streams.
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