UK digital music spend hits £1bn

Over 1.014m has been spent on downloading songs in the UK since 2004.

Almost one third of this figure – 316.5m – was spent last year alone, according to data published by music trade body BPI and the Official Charts Company.

Retail spending on digital albums increased 23 per cent year-on-year to 146m in 2010, while 132m was spent on single songs – an increase of 12 per cent. Digital now represents 98.7 per cent of all singles sales.

Adele’s album 21 became the biggest-selling digital album of all time above Lady Gaga’s ‘Fame’ and Kings of Leon’s ‘Only By The Night’.

The average retail price of an album fell to 7.32 in 2010 – 4.3 per cent less than 2009’s 7.65. This figure is made up of both physical and digital sales.

BPI’s chief executive Geoff Taylor 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 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.”

More information can be found on the BPI website.

There isn’t currently a digital sales chart for games across all formats and retail sources, but UKIE has a PC download chart in its beta stage.