The new Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) yearbook has just been published. The 112 page booklet is available to download for free. The key points are covered in a Music Week article, which I've posted below.

To download or read the booklet: www.eraltd.org/yearbook

Included in the booklet are sections covering music, video and games. There's a large number of statistics covering physical and digital sales in 2024 and the top 20 best singles and albums of 2024, including sales. Sales for the top 20 albums are broken down by physical, download and streaming sales (page 85).

Five key findings from ERA's annual numbers on the recorded music retail market

by Andre Paine

March 5th 2025 at 7:05AM

Digital entertainment and retail association ERA has published its 25th anniversary edition of the ERA Yearbook.

The Yearbook gives a detailed readout on the recorded music sales data for 2024 first revealed in its preliminary results announcement in January (the final numbers are within 0.01% of that preliminary figure).

ERA CEO Kim Bayley said: “The ERA Yearbook has over the past 25 years become an eagerly awaited reference work, and we are rightly proud of the achievements of our research and insight team led by Luke Butler which draws on data from at least six different providers to produce this definitive picture of the entertainment market.”

Here, Music Week breaks down some of the key findings in the ERA numbers…

Entertainment market nearly three times larger since 2000 – but music lags behind 

A review of ERA’s first Yearbook published in 2000, including data for 1999 (see below), shows the dramatic changes in a sector In those days, the entertainment market was 100% physical, driven by the CD, the DVD and the console game disc.

The combined music video and games sectors, which were worth £4.15 billion in 1999 reached £12.01 billion in 2024, nearly three times as much. The fastest growing sector over the period was games which was nearly six times as large in 2024 as it was in 1999.

However, music growth over the same period is just 16.8%, which amounts to a significant decline in real terms. While recorded music revenue has grown for 11 consecutive years, several years of decline (due to piracy and the physical slump) prior to that have left their mark in the latest figures.

Kim Bayley said: “These numbers are a stark reminder of the work done by ERA’s digital and streaming members to provide a safe, attractive and modern alternative to the pirate services which dealt such a deadly blow to physical formats in the early 2000s. The fact that these new legal services committed to paying creators for their work now account for 93.2% of entertainment industry revenues is a measure of the positive benefits they have brought to fans and creators alike.”

New release versus catalogue 

In its global vinyl rankings, IFPI recently noted the impact of new releases by pop artists including Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish and Charli XCX. In the UK, those five artists made the Top 10 vinyl rankings for the year along with new releases from Fontaines DC, Coldplay and The Cure – leaving just two catalogue classics in the Top 10 from Oasis and Fleetwood Mac.

On the fact of it, then, frontline releases would appear to be making inroads on vinyl. But while it’s true that new titles are performing well – up 8.9% in unit terms to 2.5m and 10.1% in value to £73.6m – catalogue is still gaining ground. Despite that Top 10 result with just two catalogue titles, for the overall market the share is 64.2% in unit terms, compared to 35.8% for new releases. Catalogue’s year-on-year increase on vinyl was 9.2%, slightly ahead of new releases.

The share of the market for new releases has been stable for the last two years, though it was higher in 2022 at 38.5%.

But as ERA notes in its Year Book, vinyl is “becoming a key component of artist release strategy and sales of new titles remain strong”.

Spotify leads the way with more than three quarters of music streamers

Spotify doesn’t break down its UK streaming numbers – although the streaming giant does issue numbers about its payments to the British music industry.

However, ERA does have a panel of 1,000 nationally representative consumers (Fly Research Tracker), which underlines the reach of Spotify. The ERA panel shows that, among music streamers, 76.1% use Spotify (covering both subscription and freemium).

Amazon Music (including the limited Prime Music bundled with Prime subscriptions) is in second place on 32.5%, followed by YouTube Music on 26.4% and Apple Music on 22.9%.

Subscription streaming – which now accounts for 85% of the recorded music market – is the choice of 82.7% of under-25s compared to 49.9% for the total panel.

Subscription vs freemium

Music labels have, understandably, never been that keen on the ad-funded model for streaming, even where it might act as a funnel for subscriptions.

According to ERA/BPI estimates, consumer spending on music streaming subscriptions surged through the £2bn mark for the first time ever in 2024, a 7.8% rise from 2023, accounting for 84.5% of the total market value.

But consumption on free services is growing at a slightly faster rate. 

According to Official Charts figures, 171.3bn premium streams were delivered across paid-for subscription tiers such as Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube Music in the UK last year. This marked an 11% increase year-on-year, accounting for 81% of total streams volume.

Just over 40.2bn streams were recorded across ad-funded, free tiers, up 11.8%, representing 19% of the total.

Vinyl inflation is over for now – and CD shows its value

The vinyl market increased again in 2024 – up 10.5% to £196m and, in unit terms, up 9.1% to 7.1m.

While the greater increase in value compared to units is explained by price rises, the inflationary pressure on vinyl LPs eased off last year. Compared to average vinyl price increases of 5.3% (£1.39 in 2023), last year the price rise amounted to just 1.3% (36p). The average vinyl LP now costs £27.76.

Nevertheless, fans of the CD can now point to the value that the format offers to music consumers compared to vinyl. The average vinyl LP was £16.34 more expensive than the average paid for a CD album in 2024.

CD albums are sold at prices that feel reminiscent of the 1990s: the average price is £11.42, a 3% year-on-year increase. 

 

Click here to read the ERA market figures for 2024 covering streaming and physical music.

from musicweek.com

Just 35 sales between Noah and Billie on the year end albums!