January 03, 2008

By By Ayala Ben-Yehuda, L.A.

Latin album sales were down 15.6% during calendar year 2007, according to figures released today by Nielsen SoundScan.

That's just slightly more than total album sales, which were down almost 15% in the 52 weeks between Jan. 1, 2007, and Dec. 30, 2007.

Latin albums (physical and digital) sold 31,853,000 units in 2007, compared to 37,774,000 in 2006, according to Nielsen SoundScan. All genres took a hit in album sales, with Latin faring better than rap, a genre that saw a 30% decline in album sales.

However, buoyed by a 45% increase in digital track sales for the music market as a whole, overall music sales across genres and media increased by more than 14% to almost 1.4 billion units (including albums, singles, music videos and digital tracks).

Among the top 10 music videos streamed online in 2007 were Beyonce and Shakira's "Beautiful Liar" (at No. 2), and Jennifer Lopez' "Que Hiciste" at No. 10, according to Nielsen BDS.

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