Streaming and vinyl propels UK music business to new all-time high

29 February 2024 - Press release

Annualised revenue exceeds 2001 record

 

Booming streaming subscriptions and sales of vinyl albums have propelled UK recorded music revenues to an all-time-high of over £2,223m.

The new high was achieved in the chart week ended Friday 23 February, according to numbers calculated on a moving-annual-total basis by digital entertainment and retail association ERA, which represents virtually every significant streaming service and music retailer in the UK.

It marks a new milestone for the UK music business and finally draws a line under the “Napster age” which saw music sales decline to just £1,020m in 2013.

“This is a day many thought would never come,” said ERA CEO Kim Bayley. “It is a red letter day for music and the artists and songwriters who soundtrack our lives. There’s still a long way to go, but these numbers show that thanks to the innovation and investment of streaming services, music is on the right track.”

The UK music industry hits its previous peak in October 2001, when the Number One single on the Official UK Charts was Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ and the Number One album was Gold – The Greatest Hits by STEPS.

More than 20 years later Kylie Minogue is enjoying a career renaissance with the Grammy Award-winning ‘Padam Padam’ and will this Saturday [March 2] be named a BRIT Awards Global Icon, while STEPS’s last album reached Number One on the Official Albums Chart.

Said Bayley, “We have come a long way. No one should underestimate the seriousness of the plight the music industry faced in the decade following 2001. It was an existential crisis. Luckily a new generation of music loving tech entrepreneurs were able to see a way to a new model, based on subscriptions rather than sales.

“Today draws a line under 2001 and highlights the fact that music sales have more than doubled since 2013. That’s great, but after 20 years of inflation, it’s still not enough. The next milestone is to see music exceed 2001 not just in nominal terms, but in real terms too.

“As ever the key to growth is for the music industry to embrace innovation. From the wax cylinder to the CD and indeed streaming, technology is the key to growth in music.”

News of the UK music industry hitting a new all-time high comes as ERA prepares to publish its annual statistical review of the entertainment industry, the ERA Yearbook, next Wednesday March 6. The book will explore in more than 80 pages of tables and charts a 2023 in which combined music, video and games sales grew by 7% to £11.9bn.