ENTERTAINMENT FANS SPEND MORE THAN £100m A WEEK ON DIGITAL SERVICES

8 August 2019 - UK consumers spent more than £100m a week on digital music, video and games in the first half of 2019, according to latest data from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), a total of more than £2.7bn on streaming services, downloads and gaming credits.

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

ERA CEO Kim Bayley said, “With January-June historically the quietest half of the year, this is another great result for entertainment. Digital services and physical retailers alike continue to innovate to expand the market for music, video and games.”

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 £485.9m 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 1.62m which made it the biggest seller of 2018.

The best-selling track was Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Someone You Loved’ which generated sales of 1.34m units.

Music 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 1.45m.

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

Revenues in videogames increased 1% over the period to £1.56bn, 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).

Sources: Music: Physical / Digital - The Official Charts Company. Streaming (subscription only) - ERA Estimates. Video: Physical - The Official Charts Company / BASE Digital - Futuresouce Consulting estimates (including EST, Pay TV-VoD, iVoD and sVoD services). Games: Physical - ISFE / B2Boost. Digital - IHS Markit estimates (including digital online, mobile and tablet gaming)