3.7 Billion Singles Sold

Over the 60 years of the Official Singles chart, 3,700,000,000 singles have been bought in the UK.  That's a big number.

That period has also seen the change of format from vinyl, through CD and now digital.   It was 2004 with the launch of itunes that marks the real start of the digital decade. It's now more than 99% digital.

There's been three main stepped increases in the number of sales over each of the decades. In the 50's and 60's the highest selling year saw 57 million singles sales.  That steppe up for the the 70's, 80's and 90's, the highest selling year saw 79 million singles sales.   That's stepped up again with the noughties, with a peak of 152m singles sales in 2009, and then increasing by a quarter again into the 2010's.

These are the peak years for singles sales within each of the last 5 decades:

1957   50m
1964   57m
1979   79m
1984   71m
1997   78m
2009  152m

And in the new decade the sales keep increasing even further... 2012 saw a huge 188.6m singles sales up from 177.9m in 2011.


Source and thanks: Official Charts Company