Streaming growth pushes UK music revenues to all-time high

That may seem like a no-brainer; music streaming has been on the up for years. But to put it in context, it means that last year recorded music revenues exceeded those generated in 2001, when popping in to HMV and picking up a new album was still all the rage.

Music streaming was not the only contributor to overall recorded music revenues, which last year reached £2.39 billion, according to new data from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), overtaking the previous high water mark of £2.22 billion in 2021. Physical format recorded music experienced growth almost as strong as streaming (see chart below), albeit from a much smaller base, led by a resurgence in vinyl sales.

Although the ERA is pretty excited about the growth in the vinyl market, it's worth pointing out that remains a fairly small percentage of the overall music market.

"With nearly 14% of revenues still coming from physical, music shows the benefits of having a mixed physical-digital ecology," said Kim Bayley, chief executive of the ERA, in a statement. "We continue to believe that digital and physical channels are complementary and vital for the health of the entertainment market overall."

Physical music sales grew by 6.2% year-on-year in 2024 to just over £330 million, buoyed by 10.5% growth in vinyl album sales to £196 million. CD album revenues were flat at £126.2 million.

Those figures are pretty impressive, given the popularity and ubiquity of streaming services. However, the streaming market is also on the up, with revenues coming in at just over £2 billion last year, and the tide is showing no sign of turning back to physical format music any time soon.

"2024 was a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume," Bayley noted.

On the subject of volume, consumption reached the equivalent of 201.4 million albums last year, with streaming alone generating the equivalent of 178 million albums, the ERA's data shows. That's just ahead of the 172 million albums sold in 2004 – the industry's high point until now – which was at what the ERA describes as "the tail-end of the CD boom." Or to put it another way, a couple of years before the height of iPod popularity and the launch of Spotify.

"This is the stunning culmination of music's comeback which has seen sales more than double since their low point in 2013," Bayley said. "We can now say definitively - music is back."

The veracity of that statement perhaps hinges on whether or not you are a fan of Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department album, which sold 783,820 copies last year, according to the ERA, including 111,937 on vinyl. But either way, we can't argue with the fact that the numbers are up, which is good news for all in the industry, including the likes of Spotify, YouTube Music and Amazon, which all benefited from the revenue hike.

It's not the ERA's remit, but it's worth noting that there is a significant telco angle here too, in that the success of the streaming market relies heavily on decent network availability and quality. Shame those networks are so tricksy to monetise.