UK music streaming tops £1 Bn in 2019 recording the fifth consecutive year of growth according to data compiled by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA). The report on entertainment spending in the UK contains information on music, video and games sales for the year and can be downloaded here.
Spending by UK music fans on streaming services exceeded £1 Bn for the first time in 2019 as overall expenditure on entertainment increased to another all-time-high. Music subscription services from the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music and Deezer is four times as much as five years ago and 31 times the level in 2010. Despite falls in sales of physical music, video and games formats, strong demand for digital services was sufficient to produce overall entertainment market growth of 2.4% to £7.8 Bn, its seventh consecutive year of growth.
| UK Consumer spending on Music 2019 (preliminary figures) – £m | |||
| 2018 | 2019 | % change | |
| Physical | £383.2 | £318.1 | -17.0% |
| Downloads | £122.6 | £89.7 | -26.8% |
| Streaming | £812.0 | £1,002.9 | 23.5% |
| Total Music | £1,317.8 | £1,410.7 | 7.1% |
Sources: Physical/digital – The Official Charts Company. Streaming estimates – ERA/BPI.
Figures for music sales over the past decade show the seismic shift from physical products to streaming. However, sales of physical entertainment formats still represent a significant retail business at £1.4 Bn in 2019.
| UK Music sales – 2019 versus 2010 (£m) | |||
| 2010 | 2019 | % change | |
| Physical | £872.6 | £318.1 | -63.5% |
| Downloads | £280.1 | £89.7 | -68.0% |
| Streaming | £31.5 | £1,002.9 | 3083.7% |
| Total Music | £1,184.2 | £1,410.7 | 19.1% |
Sources: Physical/digital – The Official Charts Company. Streaming estimates – ERA/BPI.
With growth of 23.5% compared with 2018, music streaming services delivered record labels a fifth successive year of growth. Fans spent more than twice as much streaming music than they did acquiring it on physical formats or through downloads (£407.8m), a decline of around 20% compared to the previous year. Vinyl sales again bucked the physical trend, increasing 6.4% to £97.1m.
The ERA is the trade association representing the vast majority of retailers and digital services offering music, video and games. Its members range from independent record shops (Reflex, Sister Ray) to digital services (Spotify, Google, Sky, Deezer, 7digital) to internet retailers (Amazon) to specialist High Street operators (HMV, Game) and supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons).
