Jenni Rivera, Don Omar & Lucenzo Lead 2013 Mid-Year SoundScan Latin Charts

Jenni Rivera's death in December of 2012 hugely impacted this year’s Latin music sales. At the mid-year point (through the week ending June 30, 2012), she holds five of the top 10 biggest-selling Latin albums in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Further, the top four selling Latin albums this year are all by Rivera.

Rivera's "La Misma Gran Senora" is the biggest selling Latin set of 2013 so far, selling 103,000, rising 13% over last year’s top mid-year seller, Romeo Santos’ "Formula: Vol. 1." (It had sold 91,000 by the mid-year point of 2012: July 1.)

Rivera's "Joyas Prestadas: Pop" follows at No. 2 on the 2013 mid-year list with 100,000 sold. Both titles cross the 100,00 threshold, the first time we've had two Latin albums sell in excess of 100,000 at the mid-way point of the year since 2011.

Sales of the top ten mid-year Latin albums saw a 17% increase from the top ten of 2012.  At this point in 2012, the ten best selling Latin albums had moved a combined 467,000, whereas this year sales exceed 545,000.

Contributing to the sales growth was Draco Rosa, whose duets project "Vida" lands at the No. 8 position on the mid-year list with 29,000 sold. Vicente Fernandez rounds out the list at No. 10 with "El Hijo Del Pueblo," selling 28,000.

Moving on to Latin digital song sales, Marc Anthony's "Vivir Mi Vida" at No. 5 is the highest-ranked new song on the best-selling Latin songs list. It's the year's No. 5 best seller, having moved 83,000 downloads so far.

Thus far in 2013, five Latin songs have sold more than 100,000 digital downloads, matching the amount to do so at this point a year ago.  Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" and "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)" both remain in the mid-year's top five for the fourth year in a row (Nos. 2 and 4, respectively). Don Omar’s “Danza Kuduro” (No. 1) continues in its third year among the mid-year top 10.

Overall Latin album sales stand at 4.31 million this year -- down 14% compared to a year ago (5.02 million). Latin digital song sales are at 11.13 million for 2013 thus far -- down 5.3% versus a year ago (11.75 million). To compare, overall album sales are down by 6%, while overall song sales slide by 2%.