SoundScan tracks the sales of music-related products, and scanning is accomplished through software that tracks sales by barcode. SoundScan software is a product that was designed and is used by The Nielsen Company, a global media information company that researches media, markets, brands, and trade shows that is sold for marketing and reporting purposes.

Headquartered in the Netherlands and New York City, divisions of The Nielsen Company use SoundScan and other software products to gather information that is used by entertainment and media industries to develop reports and to assist in marketing processes. Such magazines as Billboard, Adweek, and The Hollywood Reporter use Nielsen SoundScan information to generate their weekly popularity charts. Sales data from barcodes is gathered from on-line sales outlets and registers of retailers and merchants the world over. Weekly reports from SoundScan are made available every Wednesday for the previous week.

SoundScan determines top selling singles in each country in which they operate. Sales from such companies as BestBuy, Tower Records, Wherehouse, and WalMart are scanned to generate information regarding sales of music and music products. SoundScan information is sold to corporate subscribers. Subscribers include entertainment magazines, record label companies, and promotions companies for marketing purposes.

SoundScan can track sales figures for individual recording artists in various areas, compare sales figures within music genres, and assess results of promotional efforts. SoundScan information can indicate popularity of individual artists and individual albums, small or large. Countries included in SoundScan research areas include the U.S., Canada, the U.K, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, among others.

Musicians are at liberty to use SoundScan to get their music on board for tracking. Registration of an album or albums with SoundScan via a PDF form on a Nielsen company website is necessary before information can be officially tracked in music data countdowns. Albums must be available in physical outlets in the SoundScan system or on the Internet, and barcode information must be assigned to individual albums.

This article provides an overview of SoundScan. If you would like to submit an article about SoundScan or any other music-related subject, please feel free to do so here at Media Positive Radio.