Strong figures suggest UK music set for another buoyant year

British music executives are focussing on strategies for 2018 after figures for 2017 issued last week from two trade postings showed a third year of consecutive growth.

What’s more, greater growth was assured as more British consumers embraced digital.

The country’s record labels alsosaw recognitionfor their A&R and marketing strategies, with British acts dominating album and singles sales.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) reported that equivalent album sales were up 9.5% in the past 12 months to 135.1 million units.

This was the highest year-on-year growth since 1998 when sales escalated by 10%.

At the same time, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) announced that the UK music business had a retail value of around £1.2 billion (A$2.02 billion).

The ERA used Official Charts Company data which covers streaming, physical formats and downloads.

In perspective, the ERA’s wider coverage of video and video games showed that the UK entertainment sector totalled £7.2 billion ($12.4 billion), a growth of 8.8%, with 71.9% of sales now through digital.

The strong growth in music consumption was driven by 68.1 billion audio streams served through Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and other audio streaming services.

This represents a 51.5% rise on 2016 and an astounding 1,740% increase since 2012.

Streaming now accounts for 50.4% of UK music consumption and represents £577.1 million ($995.7 million).

In December 2017, a new record was set with 1.5 billion audio streams in a week.

Physical remains the second largest format, representing 38% of the market and with a revenue share of £459.4 million ($792.6 million).

The vinyl renaissance continued, with a 26.8% rise to 4.1 million long players, generating £87.7 million ($151.3 million) and constituting 3% of all music buys.

Nearly 1 million more vinyl units sold in 2017 from 2016.

Downloads have a 14% share, down 23.1% to £165 million ($284.6 million).

Of significance was that eight of the year’s ten best sellers were British.

It was the 13th year in a row that a domestic artist had the year’s bestseller.

Ed Sheeran’s ÷(divide)was the most streamed, physically purchased (on CD and vinyl) and downloaded album of the year.

Sheeran also had the year’s biggest single (‘Shape Of You’) and the Christmas No.1 (‘Perfect’).

Five of the best sellers were debuts, withRag’N’Bone Man (at #2), Stormzy (at #10) Dua Lipa, J Hus, Loyle Carner and Hyundai Mercury Prize winner Sampha.

Sam Smith, Liam Gallagher, Paloma Faith, Harry Styles. Little Mix, Take That and Michael Ball & Alfie Boe also did well.

Geoff Taylor,BPI & BRIT Awards chief executive, said: “Whilst the rapid growth of streaming and resilient demand for physical formats gives us confidence for the future, it is important to remember that the music industry still has a long way to go to recover fully.

“Structural challenges must be overcome if long-term growth is to be sustained.

“First we must continue to fight the value gap, so that all digital platforms pay fairly for their use of music.

“Second, Government must ensure our musicians are able to tour freely even after we leave the EU.

“Finally, we should make the UK the best place to invest in new content by forging an online environment that is safe for consumers and where illegal sites cannot flourish.

“If we do this, the future for British music, which is already one of our leading exports, will be very bright.”

Entertainment Retailers Association CEO Kim Bayley said, “This is an historic result which demonstrates the benefits of innovation and investment in new technology.

“New digital services are bringing ever-increasing numbers of the U.K. population back to entertainment with 24/7 access to the music, video and games they want.”

Bayley noted that in the past the entertainment market was dependent on the release schedule of game publishers, film studios and record labels.

“Now we are seeing a market which is also driven by digital platforms and technologies.”