According to market researcher Nielsen SoundScan, the recording industry had a weak year in 2007 due to the fact that album sales dropped 15%.

CDs and DVDs sales dropped in 2007, even though sales on the internet rose.

Album sales in the form of CDs, cassettes, LPs and other formats sold 500.5 million units, a downfall from 2006, when it registered a fall of only 4.9%., according to Los Angeles Times.

The album sales dropped with 9.5 % from 2006. The figures show how the recording industry failed to undermine music piracy.

The sales in digital albums rose 45 % to 844.2 million from the 588.2 million in 2006. These sales make up only 10 % of the total of album purchases, the New York Times reports.

On the other hand the music sales, including albums, singles, digital tracks and music videos were up 14 percent from 2006, to 1.35 billion units.

In the last week of 2007 the music purchases recorded a total of 58.4 million units. It was the biggest sales week ever to be recorded.

The big drop in CD albums sales is due mainly because of file sharing online and the fact that people have been focusing more on DVDs and video games.

Still, DVDs sales dropped in 2007, 4, 4 %, to 1.09 billion from 1.14 billion.

The best selling album of the year 2007 was Josh Groban’s “Noël” which sold 3.7 million copies.

The second album was the soundtrack for Walt Disney’s “High School Musical” with 2.9 million units sold.

With 2.6 million copies sold in 2007, Eagles’ comeback album “Long Road out of Eden,” was situated on the third place, even though it was available only in Wal-Mart.

Mobile phone owners bought 220 million ring tones last year for mobile music.