During the week ending with January 12th, album sales in the United States have fallen to their lowest ever with only 4.25 million units (CD and vinyl) sold across the country. These are the lowest numbers since 1991, when Nielsen SoundScan first began logging music sales. The previous lowest figure was 4.49 million during October 2013.
Album sales have been hindered by the steadily increasing popularity of digital sales, downloads, and streaming since 2010. American album sales decreased by 12% in 2010, another 4% in 2012, and 8% in 2013. Before 2010, it was extremely rare for album sales to drip below 5 million per week. Last year alone, sales fell below the 5 million mark 18 times.