UK entertainment sales up 7% to £11.9 billion
Vinyl and even CD sales contributed to the increase, but the main driver was streaming and digital services.
Streaming and digital services drove a 7% rise in UK music, video and games sales to a record £11.9 billion in 2023, according to latest figures.
Streaming and digital services increased sales by more than £800 million in a year and now account for 91.7% of total revenue, the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (Era) said.
The fastest growing sector in 2023 was video, up 10% to £4.9 billion, driven by subscription services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV, to recapture its historic position as entertainment’s largest sector, ending a 10-year run of dominance by games.
However physical sales also rose, by 0.9% to £311 million, a significant improvement on 2022’s 4% decline.
Vinyl album sales grew by 17.8% to reach £177.3 million, while CDs saw their first rise in sales value for two decades, up 2% to £126.2 million.
The biggest album of the year was The Weeknd’s The Highlights, while the best-performing track was Miley Cyrus’s Flowers.
In contrast to music, video’s physical formats suffered further reverses, with DVD sales down 21.7% to £91.8 million, while Blu-ray declined 15.1% to £77.9 million.
The biggest-selling video title of the year was Avatar – The Way Of Water, which generated sales of 560,000.
“A world without streaming now seems unthinkable. Meanwhile, the tenacity of physical retailers has driven not just the vinyl revival, but a surprise increase in the value of CD sales. Given all we’ve been through, it really doesn’t get much better than this.”
Games sales grew by a modest 2.9% in 2023 to £4.7 billion, but have doubled in value over the past decade.
The biggest-selling console game was EA Sports FC 24, Electronic Arts’ replacement for its 29-year partnership with football’s world governing body on the FIFA series, which sold in almost identical quantities to its predecessor at around 2.39 million copies.
“Due credit should go to the amazing creative talent behind the movies, music and games we all love, but we should also recognise the huge contribution of the digital services and retailers who have reinvented the entertainment experience for consumers over the past 15 years.
“The overwhelming majority of the money raised by digital services and retailers goes direct to the content owners, and their success is directly benefiting creators.”
