March 09, 2010

By By Marc Maes, Brussels

The Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA), representing 90% of the country's entertainment industry companies, has announced an increase for music sales by volume but confirmed a fall in value for 2009.

Music sales in Belgium have gone up 4.9% by volume, with sales over 7 million singles, 20% more than in 2008. The BEA said 90% of singles sold were downloads.

Album sales went down by 2.5% and account for 11.2 million units, with 90% of all album sales being physical sales in record stores.

The total music sales revenue figure dropped to ?160 million ($217 million), a decline of 2.3%.

Domestic talent secured the second and third biggest selling albums of 2009, with K3's "Mamas?" and Lady Lynn's "Here We Go Again." Kings of Leon's "Only By The Night" (Hand Me Down/RCA) was the biggest seller of the year in Belgium.

The digital music market saw a growth of 27% in turnover and accounted for a market share of 8% - not enough to compensate for the downward trend in physical sales.

The overall Belgian entertainment market has sales of more than 44 million units (albums, singles, games, DVDs and Blu-ray discs) with a total turnover of ?615 million ($835 million), 5% less than in 2008.

"We need the money [from sales] to invest in artists and music recordings," comments Erik Vink, president of BEA and managing director of Sony Music Belgium. He added that there was a need for further development of the digital market.

Olivier Maeterlinck, GM of the BEA, echoed the industry's plea for government measures against illegal downloads. "We must safeguard the creative content suppliers, and the consumer, who's entitled to get access to legal entertainment," Maeterlinck said.

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