Retailers push old releases in supermarket chart fight. (News).

Specialist music retailers are increasingly turning to back catalogue promotions, as the supermarkets grab an ever greater slice of the chart albums market, according to new statistics

More than half of all album sales last year through the likes of HMV and Virgin were achieved with releases that had come out the previous year or earlier, according to figures in the newly-issued BPI Statistics Handbook.

In comparison, 72.9% of all the albums supermarkets sold in 2002 were issued during the year, while just 12.7% of the sector's albums business came through titles released before 2001.

The changing breakdown of the specialist chains' albums sales reflects consumers' increasing tendency to turn to supermarkets for chart releases and the specialists' year-round back catalogue promotions. Only last Thursday, HMV launched its latest "biggest-ever" summer sale.

The promotions' frequency helped to push up back catalogue's volume share of the entire albums market across the High Street from 32.2% in 2001 to 34.1% in 2002, according to the research which is conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres for the BPI.

Supermarkets had the greatest concentration of their albums sales on chart titles of all music retailers, with mail order companies the least (33.6%). By contrast, 39.8% of mail order album sales were of albums issued before 2001.

HMV product director Steve Gallant notes, "It ...