UK Music Sales Rise On Digital Growth, But Subs Play Small Part

UK recorded music sales bounced back to slight growth for the first time in six years through 2009, all without Digital Economy Act-type measures yet being in place.

The British Phonographic Industry credits “a strong fourth quarter and increased digital income stream” for a 1.4 percent rise in income to £928.8 million…

Digital a big gainer: Sales rose 47.8 percent from 2008 to £188.9 million. That’s £83.7 million from track downloads, £67.3 million from albums and £3 million from videos.

Physical sales ebb: They’re down a not-horrific 6.1 percent to £739.9 million, a sixth successive annual dip.

But trends within online are interesting – digital now makes up 98 percent of track units shifted, but only a fifth (20.3 percent) of actual income

Ad income is peanuts: Free services from those like Spotify, We7 and Last.fm brought in £8.2 million – that’s 247 percent more than the year before, but still only 4.3 percent of online music income.

Subs are small, too: Premium subscription from those like Spotify, Napster and Comes With Music brought in £11.8 million – that’s a 37.2 percent rise, but still just 6.2 percent of online sales and less than one percent of total msic income.

Mobile music in rewind: Mobile income fell 13.3 percent to £12.7 million, though, within this, single track sales rose 6.8 percent.

BPI CEO Geoff Taylor, in the announcement, says: “The pace of growth of new digital services is encouraging, but the size of the market continues to be constrained by competition from illegal downloads.