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Q: Number of Drumsets Sold in the United States per year ( Answered,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: Number of Drumsets Sold in the United States per year
Category: Business and Money
Asked by: spiral9999-ga
List Price: $100.00
Posted: 26 Apr 2003 14:19 PDT
Expires: 26 May 2003 14:19 PDT
Question ID: 195887
Part a) How many drumsets are sold each year in the United States?
Part b) How many of these drumsets are electronic & how many are
acoustic?
Part c) Is there some kind of database that would list the breakdown
of these numbers by manufacturer and model?  If yes, where do I find
it?
Answer  
Subject: Re: Number of Drumsets Sold in the United States per year
Answered By: pafalafa-ga on 01 May 2003 15:11 PDT
 
"The Music Trades" magazine's Annual Music Products Industry Census
for 2002 provides the following data on percussion instruments:

Total value of sales:  $475.3 million

ranking it third place in instruments, behind 2nd place acoustic
pianos and the group leader -- fretted instruments.

For numbers of percussion instruments sold, they offer the following
statistics:


drum machines...........35,420

electronic drums........10,500 
     (in 1999, most recent year available -- sales appear 
      to have grown considerably since that time)

drumkits...............207,275


Other data for the percussion industry (for example, the sale of
cymbals, drum heads, hand percussion, etc) are given in the report in
terms of dollars, rather than numbers of units.  If they are of
interest to you, just let me know through a Request for Clarification.

----------

As for your "Part C", the answer is:  I don't think there is such a
database.

The Music Trades folks are the only ones likely to have the data, I
think.  But their Census only presents aggregated information (they
rely on survey responses from individual companies for much of their
data -- I believe that if any "trade secrets" leaked out, their
ability to conduct future surveys would suffer).

However, there is a good deal of information about who produces what
types of instruments.  To get a feel for it, take a look at this link:

http://www.musictrades.com/display.php3?q=drums

On the left hand side (under the "Company" column) are listed many of
the major drumset manufacturers.

Music Trade also sells a Purchasers Guide:

http://www.musictrades.com/guide.html

that may have some information of use to you:

"In the music and sound industries, when it comes to finding out "who
makes it" or "where to buy it," dealers have only one place to turn:
The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries. Published annually for
100 years, The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries is the
industry's only reliable and comprehensive source book listing names,
addresses, product descriptions, and a host of other valuable data on
over 3,000 suppliers."


I hope this information meets your needs.  But if anything is not
clear, or needs elaboration, please don't hesitate to post a Request
for Clarification.  This answer is not complete until you are
satisfied with the information, so let me know if there is anything I
can do to improve upon what I've provided here.



---------

Request for Answer Clarification by spiral9999-ga on 01 May 2003 18:44 PDT
Hi, 

Much thanks to journalist-ga for leading me to MusicTrades in the
first place, and to pafalafa-ga for previewing the Annual Census for
me.  It is very important for me to get more up-to-date information
regarding the sales data for electronic drum kits.  I was hoping that
the April edition of the Census would contain recent data on
electronic kits.  You seem to indicate that they don't have this data.
 I will obvious scour the MusicTrade Census when I get it in the mail,
but meanwhile, is there any other way to get this information?  My
feeling is that there has been an explosion of sales since 1999, and
it would be helpful to know how explosive it was, in dollars, units,
and/or percentage of growth.  Also helpful (although I didn't indicate
this specifically in the orignal question) would be to know the
percentage of electronic kits vs. acoustic kits sold, and moreover,
whether or not, for instance, a growth in the sales of electronic drum
kits has caused a decline in the growth rate for sales of acoutsic
kits.

Thanks in advance,

spiral9999-ga

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 01 May 2003 19:32 PDT
Hello again, and thanks for clarifying just what you need.  Some of
the information in the Census will help to put some perspective on
your questions.

Electronic drum sales in 1999 were, as I said earlier, 10,500 units,
with a total value of $12.38 million, or about $1,650 per unit.

Number of units sold are not available for later years, but there is
total sales data as follows:

1999...........$12.38 million
2000............14.79 million
2001............26.96 million
2002............28.85 million

As you can see, there was explosive growth between 2000 and 2001. 
Assuming that costs per unit didn't change all that much, the doubling
in sales would mean a doubling the number of units sold.

At the same time, the growth rate in sales of drumkits *did* slow down
appreciably, and the average unit price of a drum kit dropped quite a
bit (leading to a resurgence in sales).  You'll see the detailed data
when you get your copy of the Census (there's a limit to how much I
can reproduce here), but in a nutshell, the number of units sold
increased at double digit rates every year between 1996 and 2002
EXCEPT during the 2000-2001 period, when growth in the number of units
was only 7.9%, and the overall value of sales actually *fell* (the
only time period during which this happened) by 2.8%.  The growth rate
(units and dollars) picked up again quite a bit in 2002, partly due to
the spurt of buying produced by the lower unit costs.

As the magazine itself put it (quoting a drum retailer), now that
drums are so inexpensive, parents are buying their kids entire sets,
instead of just springing for a single snare drum.

----------

I hope this helps out.  Since I don't know what your precise need is
for the data, it's hard to know if I'm picking and choosing the right
things to present to you.  If you think there is more I can tell you,
don't hesitate to post a follow up Request for Clarification.
Comments  
Subject: Re: Number of Drumsets Sold in the United States per year
From: journalist-ga on 26 Apr 2003 16:26 PDT
 
Greetings Spiral9999:

The information you seek does not seem to be online although I hope
another Researcher will be able to track it down for you.  The only
source I found that may be of assistance is Music Trades Magazine but
I found no current issues in their archives.

The article "Carving Out an Entrepreneurial Niche in the Competitive
Music Business and World of Drummers" by Bruce Shutan at
http://www.onlinerock.com/howto/custDrums.shtml reads in part, "Also
cited were statistics from Music Trades, an industry magazine in
Englewood, N.J., showing that drum sales doubled between 1996 and 2000
to 172,970 kits."

You may want to contact that source and request the most recent
information directly from them.

Contact Music Trades:
Online request form http://www.musictrades.com/comments.html
The Music Trades
80 West Street 
Englewood, NJ 07631
Phone: 201-871-1965
Fax: 201-871-0455
mailto:music@musictrades.com

Best regards,
journalist-ga


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