Woolworths have denied reports that they plan to follow the supermarkets in dropping CD singles from their music departments. Woolies comments follow confirmation from Asda earlier this week that they plan to follow Tesco's lead of a couple of months back and stop selling the CD single format. They say that the falling cost of CD albums (caused, in part, by Asda using its bulk buying power to force trade prices of albums down) and the growth of single track download sales mean that not enough CD singles are now sold to justify dedicating shelf space to them.
According to the BBC, Asda's Music Buyer Andy Powell says: "We're reluctantly saying goodbye to one of the most important products in music history", adding that the space previously dedicated to singles would be used to promote "breakthrough albums". He concluded: "Customers want more than just a song from their favourite artists - they want the whole album at an affordable price".
Asda's move follows a similar decision made by its main rival, Tesco, two months ago, though Asda always accounted for more singles sales than any other supermarket (in 2005 they accounted for about 12.5% while Tesco just 3%) so their decision could have a bigger impact on the overall physical CD single market.
However, Woolworths, who account for a third of all single sales, has denied press speculation that it too was considering taking CD singles off its shelves. Their music chief, Jim Batchelor, said yesterday: "They are still an important part of the music business. If you give people what they want, they will buy it. The Proclaimers sold over 200,000 copies of their single for Comic Relief and X-Factor winner Leona Lewis sold over half a million singles in 10 days".