Last week, Nielsen SoundScan reported that weekly album sales reached an all-time low of 5.3 million sales, a number unmatched since Nielsen first began analyzing sales in 1991.
At the top of Billboard’s charts was Justin Bieber’s My World 2.0 with 60,000 sales, beating out the 2007 soundtrack to Dreamgirls as the lowest selling number one album by only 300 copies. Following behind Bieber was country trio Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now with 54,000 units sold and rock group the National’s new release High Violet with 51,000 units sold.
Despite the low numbers, Nielsen Entertainment president Eric Weinberg remains confident sales will pick up during the summer. With the past week yielding few popular album releases, Weinberg says that the coming weeks promise a number of highly anticipated releases.
“While there’s a lot of talk of declining album sales, a number of highly anticipated albums are scheduled for release in the next few months and we expect sales to trend upward,” he said.
