The music industry in the UK has continued to see majorly falling sales and this means that many music companies need to make changes to their business models. Album sales in the UK music market have fallen for the last three months to September. Whilst physical compact disc sales have declined the amount of digital album purchases have increased. Even though the digital sales have increased it has failed to offset the further decline in compact disc sales.

Almost thirty percent of the album sales that have occurred within the UK music album market this year have been accounted for by digital music. The number of thirty percent shows an increase on last year; the figure last year for downloaded music was 20.1 percent. These figures have been released by the music industry trade body, BPI.

The falling number of compact disc sales has become a major concern for many of the music producers within the UK. Numerous record companies have already stated that they will move entirely towards digital music downloads in the near future. Changes in consumer buying habits has meant that there is now a greater demand for good quality digital music downloads.

Compact disc album sales have fallen dramatically in the last few years and this has continued this year. The fall in the last three months has been twenty percent from 19.6 million to 15.6 million. Album sales fell in general across all types of music formats including CD, digital and vinyl; the fall in sales totaled 11.4 percent, down to 21.8 million from 24.6 million.

These figures help to show why so many different companies have been struggling within the current climate. Music retailer HMV continues to struggle majorly within the music industry. The record shop is now attempting to diversify its portfolio away from music towards other avenues.

The majority of music that is purchased in the UK is now downloaded and the amount of companies offering digital music services has increased majorly. The amount of competition within this industry now means that consumers can purchase digital music for a cheap price. Record companies are concerned that music sales are falling and there is likely to be a drive towards increasing sales in the near future.