U.S. music consumption in 2023 showed strong growth as metrics like On-Demand Audio (+12.7%) and Albums w/ TEA w/SEA On-Demand (+12.6%) equivalents grew year-over-year compared to 2022. Along with this growth, the average number of equivalent album units needed in order to reach a specific position on the Billboard 200 albums chart increased as well. In fact, more equivalent album units were needed to place on the chart at No. 200 in 2023 as well as hit several other marks, including a No. 10 chart position that needed an average of 38.4k average equivalent album units each week. And while each of the rank positions in the chart below needed more units in 2023 than they did in 2022, the aforementioned No. 10 ranking needed 27% more equivalent units than it did in 2022 when the average No. 10 ranked album required 30.3k units.
This year, in general, fewer album equivalents are needed to reach specific rank thresholds than were needed in 2023. However, the trend in recent years shows that the No. 200 album in 2024 needs on average 13% more album equivalent activity than it did in 2021 when it took 6.7k units to land at No. 200. So while it is requiring more album equivalent activity to rank on the Billboard 200, the activity in 2023 was still particularly strong.
Source:
Luminate Music Consumption Data
