August 12, 2019

According to the latest data from the ERA, UK consumers spent more than £100 million a week on digital music, video and games in the first half of 2019, a total of more than £2.7 billion on streaming services, downloads and gaming credits.

Adding in expenditure on physical formats, such as CD and DVD, shows that retail revenues of the combined music, video and games sectors grew by 4.5% to £3.3 billion in the first six months of 2019 compared with the same period last year.

Recorded music was the fastest growing sector with growth of 9.9% compared with the same period of 2018.

Music’s growth was driven by continuing strong adoption of subscription streaming services from the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer and YouTube Music. Consumers spent £485.9 million on subscription streaming in the first half of 2019, 25.8% more than in the same period last year.

The best-selling album was the soundtrack to The Greatest Showman, which generated sales of 380,000 units to add to the 1.62 million, which made it the biggest seller of 2018.

The best-selling track was Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved”, which generated sales of 1.34 million units.

Music also provided a theme to the video market’s success with the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody the biggest seller of the first six months of 2019 with sales of 1.45 million.

Expenditure on video grew by 6.4% in the first half of 2019 to £1.07 billion with the continuing decline in DVD and Blu-ray sales easily outweighed by the 18% (£130 million) increase in digital revenues.

Revenues in videogames increased 1% over the period to £1.56 billion, although games remains by far the biggest sector accounting for nearly half of the combined music, video and games markets. Most successful game of the period was Grand Theft Auto V (361,312 units sold), narrowly ahead of FIFA 19 (360,588). To read the ERA’s news release in full, click here