The latest figures from the UK’s Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) have handed some bragging rights to the UK’s music industry, albeit with some caveats about what is and isn’t in the numbers.
The report claims music sales grew 7.9% in the first half of 2024 in the UK, compared to 5.4% growth for video sales, and a startling 29.4% decline in game sales.
Caveat One: this is actually ‘sales’; vinyl, CD and download sales; not streaming subscriptions or advertising revenue. The same applies to video; streaming services aren’t included in this data.
Caveat Two: music is still the smallest of the three sectors: its £163.8m of sales in the first half of this year compares to £213.7m for video and £348.6m for games.
Still, this isn’t to carp: it’s a positive set of figures for the music industry. Vinyl sales were up 13.5% year-on-year to £86.3m in the first half of 2024, while CD sales grew 3.2% to £57.9m.
ERA said that the vinyl growth was driven by the twin forces of Taylor Swift and Record Store Day, with Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department the biggest-selling album this year.
“This is a striking result for music, driven most notably by Taylor Swift and Record Store Day,” said ERA boss Kim Bayley. ” It was clear back in April the impact they have had on the vinyl sector, but they seem to have lifted the market as a whole too.”
There was one streaming stat in its report: the volume of streams was up 11% in the first half of 2024 according to ERA. And this is after a 12.8% increase in 2023 as a whole, according to figures released by labels body the BPI in January.
