While the 8-year decline of physical configuration has seen total unit shipments cut in half to 543.9 million units last year, according to the RIAA, 868.4 million digital units blew up total units to 1.77 billion units, the largest unit shipment number in the history of the U.S. music business. But dollar volume continues to decline, dropping 11.8% to $10.4 billion from the $11.6 billion generated in 2006.
Overall physical album shipments dropped 17.5% to 512.8 million from the nearly 621.3 million shipped in the prior year. The average list price of albums also dropped in 2007, coming in at $14.58 versus the $15.12 it averaged in 2006.
Meanwhile, individual downloads grew to 810 million, up 38.1% from the 586.4 million downloaded in 2006, while album sales grew 54% to 42.4 million.
Total digital download volume was 868.4 million units, which translated into $1.26 billion. The industry also generated $878.9 million from mobile sales of ringtones, ringbacks, and song downloads — up 13.6% from the $773.6 million rang up last year. Another $200 million was generated from subscription services, which was down slightly, by 2.6%, from the $206.2 million garnered in 2006.
