Celine Dion Reigned Supreme in 2007

Nielsen SoundScan Canada has unveiled its 2007 Canadian year-end sales and airplay monitoring data for 2007 and Celine Dion is the winner. CDs, however, continue to be the loser... ish.

The numbers show a 9.5% decline from 2006 in total album sales as well as a  73% increase in digital track sales over 2006, representing 25 million digital tracks purchased. Meanwhile, digital album sales increased 93%, representing 4.7% of total album sales.

The chain music store juggernaut continues to decline, accounting for 63% of all album sales, compared to 66% in 2006 and 71% in 2005.

Pop diva Celine Dion's album sales exceeded 560,000 in 2007 making her the biggest selling artist of the year. Nielson notes that the top two selling artists in Canada are actually Canadians; Dion and Shania Twain. Fellow Canadian, Feist, tops the Top 10 Selling Digital Albums for 2007 with 17,000 units sold. Avril Lavigne topped the Top 10 Artist Airplay numbers with 107,632 detections.

For the last two years, 25% of total album sales happened during the last six weeks of the year: Holiday Season. I got socks and cheese for Christmas. Hrmph.

Read more about the 2007 music industry facts from Reuters and from the Music Industry News Network.