14 MusicWeek 13.04.12 BUSINESSANALYSIS Q1 SALES MAJORS SUFFER LEVELS OF PAIN It was another downturn this quarter – but the share of anguish was not equal across the board
MARKET SHARE BY PAUL WILLIAMS
T
he four majors collectively lost 2 million artist album sales during Adele’s record- breaking Q1 last year – and 12 months on –
the outlook for them was even worse. Between them Universal, Sony, Warner and
EMI saw their combined might in the artist albums market fall by a further 2.2 million units during the opening three months of 2012 as they took a big chunk of the hit of a sector that was down 17.1% year-on-year, according to the Official Charts Company. But a closer examination of the numbers shows
the big players did not suffer the pain equally. Universal sold around 870,000 fewer full- and mid- price artist sales compared to Q1 2011, a 14.1% drop, while half a million fewer sales for Sony equated to a 16.1% fall. Having shone so brightly in the opening quarter of last year with four of the period’s Top 10, including Bruno Mars’ Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Warner’s artist album sales a year later were down by more than 1 million, a fall of 31.4% that allowed EMI – the only major to lift its sales in the quarter – to leap above it and finish as the third top albums group. EMI sold around 230,000 more full- and mid-
price albums between January and March compared to 12 months earlier, a 10.5% rise, with its successes including 350,697 units shifted of Emeli Sandé’s Our Version Of Events and another 200,000 sales of Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto to tip it over the million cumulative mark. This gave EMI a 14.8% share of the quarter’s artist albums market, up from 10.9% during the first period of 2011 when it had finished behind an XL Beggars-boosted Adele with 12.9%. Across all full- and mid-price albums EMI was
in third place with a 14.7% share, up from 11.4% 12 months ago, with Universal finishing first with 32.1% (30.0% in Q1 2011), Sony second with 16.3% (15.5%) and Warner slipping from bronze position to fourth with 12.1% (15.3%). EMI UK & Ireland CEO Andria Vidler is
particularly pleased the major’s Q1 success has been
Sales up: Coldplay helped EMI to become the only major to post an albums sales rise in Q1
achieved with a number of different artists. “We are obviously thrilled and delighted with
Emeli, but I’m also really thrilled with the David Guetta result and also the Coldplay album, which has continued to perform really well and we’ve really reached a new youth audience for Coldplay,” she says. No doubt opponents to Universal’s planned
TOP 100 SINGLES BY GENRE
TOP 100 ARTIST ALBUMS BY GENRE
EMI acquisition will be getting out their calculators around about now and working out that the combined majors’ share of the UK’s albums market grew year-on-year from 41.4% to 46.8% with second-placed Sony’s share little more than one- third of that. However, it should be noted this Universal/EMI market share increase was accompanied by them collectively selling around 500,000 fewer full- and mid-price albums with Universal down by about 730,000 on the first quarter of last year and EMI up about 220,000. And Universal will also argue the question of its EMI takeover needs to be considered on a lot more than market share. For Universal the losses it sustained in the artist
POP 35% (44%)
CONTEMPORARY URBAN 35% (43%) DANCE 16% (9%) ROCK 10% (3%)
CLASSICAL 1% (0%) FOLK 1% (0%)
REGGAE 1% (1%) SOUL 1% (0%)
TOP 100 SINGLES BY ARTIST NATIONALITY
POP 38% (39%) ROCK 26% (27%)
CONTEMPORARY URBAN 18% (17%) MOR/EASY LISTENING 5% (6%) DANCE 4% (2%)
COUNTRY 2% (0%) SOUL 2% (0%) OTHERS 5%
TOP 100 ARTIST ALBUMS BY ARTIST NATIONALITY
albums market were partially compensated by a lift in the compilations sector where it sold around 135,000 extra non-budget albums compared to a year ago, a 14.4% rise. Universal’s top artist album successes included
Polydor act Lana Del Rey’s debut Born To Die, Decca’s chart-topping Military Wives album In My Dreams and Mercury act Maverick Sabre’s introductory Lonely Are The Brave. There were also continuing strong sales of 2011 releases by the likes of Jessie J, Rizzle Kicks and Florence + The Machine. Universal commercial division managing director
Brian Rose says: “We’re obviously delighted about Lana Del Rey and encouraged by something like Rizzle Kicks, which came through really strongly having been launched last year, and Maverick Sabre has made a good start and it’s a gold album.” Sony’s increased overall albums market share,
UK 47% (43%) US 35% (41%)
EUROPE 8% (6%) OTHERS 10% (6%)
UK 53% (52%) US 34% (33%)
EUROPE 5% (6%) OTHERS 8% (7%)
despite an 11.9% drop in the number of non- budget albums it sold, came on the back of the likes of continuing success for Epic act Olly Murs’ second set In Case You Didn’t Know, Columbia’s
SINGLES FOCUS SALES ON THE UP – BUT DON’T TAKE QUARTER 1’S RISE IN ISOLATION
Chart topper: Gotye sold more this quarter than Adele’s Someone Like You did in Q1 2011
THE SINGLES MARKET CONTINUED to hit record new levels in Q1, although growth was less than half of what it had been across 2011. Sales rose between January and March by
4.4% to 46.7 million units, according to Official Charts Company figures, adding up to nearly two million extra singles being sold compared to during the first quarter of last year. The market in Q1 was double the size it was five years earlier. However, the rise compared to an annual
increase of 10.0% across the whole of 2011 and an examination of sales of some of the quarter’s biggest sellers reveals some slightly lower numbers compared to what the
equivalent releases enjoyed during the opening quarter a year ago. Although Q1’s top seller, the Island-issued
Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye featuring Kimbra, sold more copies (742,043) across the quarter than XL act Adele managed over the same period last year to top Q1 2011’s chart with Someone Like You (698,020), sales of some of this past quarter’s other titles were inferior. Among these were Atlantic act Flo Rida’s
Good Feeling, which sold 272,685 copies to finish as the quarter’s 10th top single, 2.3% less than the Polydor-handled Coming Home by Diddy Dirty Money featuring Skylar Grey shifted last year to occupy the same
position. And 13.9% fewer sales were needed to break into the quarter-end Top 40 compared to 12 months earlier. The fact the market was up again is in BPI
chief executive Geoff Taylor’s eyes “a decent result”. “I would hope to see that growth rate become higher year-on-year,” he says. “Obviously, Gotye has had tremendous success and there have been other markets that saw a flattening out. That hasn’t happened here.” Universal commercial division managing
director Brian Rose, whose company provided four of the quarter’s 10 biggest singles led by Somebody That I Used To Know, is encouraged the market is up on
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All figures in brackets in these charts refer to Q1 2011 Source: Music Week research/OCC data
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