UK Digital Music Sales Pass the £1bn Milestone, 12 May 2011

·         UK retail spending on digital music in excess of £1,014m since launch in 2004.

·         Adele’s 21 is the UK’s biggest selling digital album of all time.

·         Average retail price of an album now £7.32 – down by a third in the last decade.

·         Nearly one in five people made at least one digital music purchase in 2010.

UK music fans have spent more than £1 billion on digital music since the launch of legal online music services in 2004, with almost a third of the total (£316.5m) spent in 2010 alone, new figures published today in the BPI’s Annual Yearbook 2011 revealed.

Retail spending on digital albums increased by 23% to £146m in 2010, with more than 56.5m digital albums sold since the format launched in 2006 – according to the data, which is compiled for the BPI by the Official Charts Company.  In 2010, 21.0m digital albums were sold, with the format now accounting for 17.5% – one in six – of all albums sold in the UK.

UK consumers splashed out £132m on digital single tracks last year, an increase of 12% year-on-year.  In total, 158.6m single tracks were sold digitally in 2010, with more than 579.4m sold since the first legal music stores opened for business in 2004.  Digital now represents 98.7% of all singles sales.

21 by Adele is the UK’s biggest selling digital album of all time, having leapfrogged The Fame by Lady Gaga and Kings of Leon’s Only By The Night into top slot since its release in January 2011.  34 albums have now sold more than 100,000 copies digitally, with 6 of the top 10 represented by UK artists.

The UK’s top-three selling digital tracks since sales began in 2004 were revealed as I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas, Sex On Fire by Kings Of Leon and Poker Face by Lady Gaga.  74 digital tracks have now sold more than 500,000 copies in the UK to date.

Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive, said: “British music fans enjoy the world’s most competitive and innovative digital music scene, propelling all-time sales of digital singles and albums past the £1bn mark.  The strength of British music means there is fantastic potential for further growth. Adele’s 21, the biggest seller of 2011, is already the UK’s biggest-selling digital album of all time.  The hard work done by UK record labels in pushing forward the digital music market is paying off for consumers, digital retailers and the music community.”

There was good news for consumers last year as the average retail price of an album (including both physical and digital) in 2010 stood at £7.32, dropping a further 4.3% from 2009’s average price of £7.65.    Four out of every five albums (83%) were bought for under £10 in 2010. Overall, the average retail price of albums has decreased £3.45 in the last ten years, a 32% decrease.  If retail prices had kept track with inflation, in 2010 the average album would have cost £14.56. 

19.5% of the population made at least one digital music purchase in 2010, rising to 23.4% among men.  More than a third (34.1%) of buyers aged 13 to 19 downloaded some music on either single or album format in 2010 – up from 29.8% in 2009 - with this age group also accounting for the biggest average annual spend on digital music in 2010, £32.78 per buyer

Taken as a whole, 58.5% of music buyers bought physical formats only in 2010, down from 65.8% in 2009, compared to 17.2% buying exclusively digital music – up from 12.4% in 2009.  Nearly a quarter (24.3%) of music consumers mixed and matched their formats, buying both physical and digital formats.

The data released by the BPI is based on the weekly market surveys conducted by the Official Charts Company, in compiling the UK’s Official Singles and Albums charts.  The Official Charts survey covers around 99% of the singles market and 95% of the albums market in the UK.

ENDS

For further information on BPI, please contact

 Adam Liversage on 020 7803 1326 / 0780 1179032 or email adam@bpi.co.uk.

 Lynne McDowell on 0207 803 1395 / 07763 619709 or email Lynne@bpi.co.uk.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

2010 Value of Retail sales

*Physical formats only.

2010 Average Retail Prices for Albums

*Includes digital from 2007 onwards.

UK top selling digital single tracks 2004 - present

UK top selling digital artist albums 2006 - present

About BPI

The BPI is the representative voice of the UK recorded music business. The BPI is a trade organisation funded by its members - which include hundreds of independent music companies and the UK’s four major record labels. The BPI’s members account for approximately 90% of all recorded music sold in the UK, and globally the UK's recorded music market is the third biggest. 

The BPI also organises the annual BRIT Awards show as well as the Classical BRIT Awards show. The organising company BRIT Awards Limited, is a fully owned subsidiary of the BPI. Substantial proceeds from both shows go to the BRIT Trust, the charitable arm of the BPI that has donated almost £15m to charitable causes nationwide since its foundation in 1989.