The One Bil Music Biz

The music industry can boast sales of more than 1 billion units in 2005, but only digital sales were a bright spot in an otherwise down year, according to year-end figures released by Nielsen SoundScan.

Continuing the trend away from retailers and toward iPods and MP3 players, 618.9 million albums were sold last year, down 7.2 percent from 2005.

“It was a year where you had to deal with the problems of piracy and the fact that there weren’t that many big stars releasing records,” Universal Music Group Chairman Doug Morris said.

A record 352.7 million digital tracks helped boost sagging results. It was a 150 percent jump from 2004. Digital album sales also leapt 194 percent from 2004, with 16 million-plus sold.

Mariah Carey ended the year with the top album, The Emancipation of Mimi, selling 4.9 million copies. Backed by eight Grammy nominations, a rush of sales late in the year catapulted her past 50 Cent‘s Massacre, which sold 4.8 million.

The most popular digital track was Weezer‘s “Beverly Hills,” while Green Day was the top-selling digital act with nearly 3.5 million downloaded songs.

Of physical units, 24.7 million were purchased over the Internet, an 11.3 percent increase over last year.

UMG was the top distributor with 32 percent of all album sales, up from 30 percent in 2004. Sony BMG Entertainment was second with 26 percent, down from 28 percent in ’04. Third was Warner Music Group, with 15 percent of the market, up slightly from last year.

Meanwhile, virtually all individual music genres decreased in sales. The only one to improve was Latin music, which increased by 12.6 percent. The most precipitous drop-offs were in soundtracks, classical and metal.

On a brighter note, in total albums (CDs, cassettes, vinyl record and digital releases), the music biz racked up more than 1 billion sales for the first time ever.