Thread: RIAA 2005 Year-End Statistics

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Post by Jan April 3, 2006 (1 of 28)
I looked through the RIAA 2005 statistics. CD retail was down 8 %, maybe no surprise. But it also states that SACD was down 41 %! Only 500 000 SACD sold in America last year. Less than 0.1 % compared to CDs. Can this be true? or are they having trouble in keeping apart Hybrid SACDs and CDs?

Regards

Jan

http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/pdf/2005yrEndStats.pdf

Post by seth April 3, 2006 (2 of 28)
Jan said:

I looked through the RIAA 2005 statistics. CD retail was down 8 %, maybe no surprise. But it also states that SACD was down 41 %! Only 500 000 SACD sold in America last year. Less than 0.1 % compared to CDs. Can this be true? or are they having trouble in keeping apart Hybrid SACDs and CDs?

Regards

Jan

http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/pdf/2005yrEndStats.pdf

This isn't exactly scientific, but let's try and break the numbers down:

Classical accounts for about 3% of CD sales, so in 2005, about 21.2 million classical CDs were sold. When you consider that includes things like soundtracks and crossover, the number is even lower. So since most SACD releases are classical, 500k does sound too little, but not by that much. How many classical SACD releases do you think sold over 10,000 units, or even 4,000?

Post by mknappe April 3, 2006 (3 of 28)
Pretty sure the SACD numbers are for single-layer only, not hybrids, and not surprisingly are way down since none are released as single layer anymore. Very unfortunate way to describe SACD sales.

Post by Edvin April 3, 2006 (4 of 28)
When it comes to SACD the word is..DELETE...why should people pay good money for a surround SACD version of Kind of Blue - surround meaning some echo in the back.
People are buying surround systems for their dvd-video systems, this is the way to go forward. Surround sound with less talk about bits here or there.
Or maybe I am wrong..?

Post by seth April 3, 2006 (5 of 28)
mknappe said:

Pretty sure the SACD numbers are for single-layer only, not hybrids, and not surprisingly are way down since none are released as single layer anymore. Very unfortunate way to describe SACD sales.

You think that many single layer SACDs were sold? How many are even in print?

Post by Karlosak April 3, 2006 (6 of 28)
There is no doubt that SACD hybrid discs aren't included, which is really pathetic as single-layers are phased out and increasingly harder to buy. Just look at DVD-Audio, which is IMO a dead horse, and still it grew by 32% in comparison to SACD fall by 41% (both changes of units shipped between years 2004-05). Moreover the total amount of units shipped, being the same for SACD and DVD-Audio is rather suspicious.

There is also inconsistency of the trend over the years. In 2003 more than three times as much SACDs were sold as DVD-As. The dominance of SACD was unquestionable. Should I believe that now, two years after, DVD-As have boosted in sales by 25% and SACDs have fallen by 60% in comparison to year 2003? When the SACD catalogue nearly doubled and still new and new titles are being released? Who then buys them? If it weren't profitable for the labels they wouldn't sell it...

It's a really pitty that RIAA statistics are so screwed, it may send false signals to labels producing SACDs and the ones that are just considering it.

Post by zeus April 3, 2006 (7 of 28)
Jan said:

I looked through the RIAA 2005 statistics. CD retail was down 8 %, maybe no surprise. But it also states that SACD was down 41 %! Only 500 000 SACD sold in America last year. Less than 0.1 % compared to CDs. Can this be true? or are they having trouble in keeping apart Hybrid SACDs and CDs?

Differentiating single inventory hybrids may well be a factor. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence however that SA-CD is less visible at the retail level in the US, the reasons due in part to a distribution model geared to moving large volumes of a small number of titles. But these are US figures only. Most of the action on the format is elsewhere these days.

Post by DrZhivago April 3, 2006 (8 of 28)
zeus said:

Differentiating single inventory hybrids may well be a factor. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence however that SA-CD is less visible at the retail level in the US, the reasons due in part to a distribution model geared to moving large volumes of a small number of titles. But these are US figures only. Most of the action on the format is elsewhere these days.

I'd like to know where? :)


Cheers

Post by zeus April 3, 2006 (9 of 28)
DrZhivago said:

I'd like to know where? :)

The overall release numbers are about the same, it's just that now most of the SA-CDs I add here originate from Europe. The same for sales initiated from this site.

Post by DrZhivago April 3, 2006 (10 of 28)
zeus said:

The overall release numbers are about the same, it's just that now most of the SA-CDs I add here originate from Europe. The same for sales initiated from this site.

Wouldn't know that, as I'm in a minority here,I guess. I ordered most of my recent sacd's from amazon.com (us) via the links from this web site. These were mostly LS SACD's and few remaining Columbia jazz (single layer) discs. Given the recent (favourable) exchange rate AUD/USD, getting these discs from U.S made more sense.

Cheers

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