UK consumers spend 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 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 conti/nue 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 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.
Entertainment Retail Consumer Spend H1 2019
| CONSUMER SPEND £ (m) | H1 2018 | H1 2019 | % change | |
| Music | Physical | £160.9 | £138.8 | -13.8% |
| Downloads | £65.0 | £48.1 | -26.1% | |
| Streaming | £386.1 | £485.9 | 25.8% | |
| Total Music | £612.1 | £672.7 | 9.9% | |
| Video | Physical | £281.3 | £215.8 | -23.3% |
| Digital | £724.4 | £854.5 | 18.0% | |
| Total Video | £1,005.7 | £1,070.3 | 6.4% | |
| Games | Physical | £202.2 | £184.9 | -8.5% |
| Digital | £1,343.4 | £1,376.3 | 2.4% | |
| Total Games | £1,545.6 | £1,561.2 | 1.0% | |
| Total Entertainment | Physical | £644.4 | £539.5 | -16.3% |
| Digital (inc streaming) | £2,519.0 | £2,764.7 | 9.8% | |
| Total Entertainment | £3,163.4 | £3,304.2 | 4.5% |
For details of the Top Albums, Top Tracks, Top Videos and Videogames for the first half of 2019 go here.
