For the first time since 2004 the UK music industry has seen a rise in music sales figures last year, with an unexpected increase in vinyl sales and music streams. As reported in the 2015 Music Market Report, published today by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), vinyl sales has rosen by 64 per cent, which represents a “21-year high”. Indeed, from 2007, when LP sales were down to 205,000 copies sold, the figures have boosted till an impressive 2.1 million LPs sold over the past 12 months.
The CD decline has slowed down to 3.9 per cent and the format “still accounts for two thirds (66 per cent) of all album sales (excluding streams)”, a huge improvement from 2012 20 per cent drop. Nonetheless, the figures for the streaming services were overall the most impressive: with 26.8 billion audio streams (therefore excluding streaming through music video sites such as Youtube), the digital format went up 82 per cent and it now accounts for “54 per cent of all UK music consumption”.
Combining all the numbers, BPI reports that 121.6 million albums were either physically purchased, digitally downloaded or consumed via streaming services in 2015, 4 per cent up the 117.2 millions in 2014. Geoff Taylor, BPI and Brit Awards chief executive, commented saying: ‘The soaring popularity of music streaming and the burgeoning vinyl revival mean that UK music consumption rose again in 2015″.
He continued: “Services such as Spotify and Apple Music are going mainstream as more people discover how wonderful it is to have all the music in the world to listen to, whenever and wherever you want. Millions of fans also continue to build treasured collections of favourite albums on vinyl, CD or downloads”. Taylor had some really positive thoughts about UK artists, who, in his words:
“are driving this growth and inspiring the fans – at home and across the planet – with their award-winning song-writing and performances, whether it’s global icons such as Adele, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and One Direction, or recent British breakthroughs and newcomers like Jess Glynne, Little Mix and James Bay“. Overall, £1.1 billion were spend on music products by UK consumers and, for the first time in over a decade the retail value of UK music rose from £1.03 billion in 2014 to £1.06 billion.
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