BRYN MAWR, Pa. (Top40 Charts/ ArkivMusic LLC) - ArkivMusic, The Source for Classical
Music (https://www.arkivmusic.com) announced today that the company achieved record revenues in 2007 with 30% growth year-over-year, topping one million dollars in December alone. This bucks the retail industry's downward trend in sales of physical CDs.
'This was the best year overall for our business, and another successive year of accelerated growth,' said ArkivMusic's President Eric Feidner. 'It's hard to overemphasize the significance of this in today's music marketplace. We currently only sell physical CDs of classical music. With the industry's ever-increasing focus on digital downloads, I think this shows just how unique our particular genre of music is relative to the overall music business.'
Elsewhere, the music business ended 2007 on a weak note. According to Nielsen SoundScan, U.S. album sales were down more than 15% for the year.
'Over the last few years, ArkivMusic has become one of our largest accounts in the U.S.,' stated Jim Selby, President of Naxos U.S.A. 'We are thrilled that they have been able to get the word out about our recordings to so many classical music lovers across the country.'
Operating exclusively online, ArkivMusic's advantage is its 'endless shelf' of available classical CD inventory. The company is an example of The Long Tail theory where companies profit by selling less of more. Classical aficionados can access the largest number of classical recordings available anywhere in the world - over 82,000 titles - including nearly 5,000 formerly out-of-print titles produced 'on demand' as ArkivCDs.
'The ArkivCD program made up about 10% of our overall business in the fourth quarter,' continued Feidner. 'That's a significant percentage for what is essentially a new line of products. We launched this initiative late in 2006, and we continue to reissue hundreds of releases each month as we expand the catalog of formerly deleted titles.'
All four major label groups are participating in the ArkivCD program. Thomas Evered, General Manager and Senior Vice President of EMI Classics/Angel Records stated, "ArkivMusic has become a vital and important outlet for our current catalog of CDs as well as our now-available back stock as ArkivCDs. They have shown that the classical customer is eager to find new releases and catalog reissues and is underserved by what is left of traditional retail."
