Mika leads UK sales successes in Europe

Posted August 13, 200717 yr

Mika leads UK sales successes in Europe

13 August 2007 - 09:31:20

Source; MW

Mika’s Life In Cartoon Motion is this week closing in on 2m sales outside of the UK, with the artist expected to spend a fourth week at the top of the French albums chart.

The Universal act’s international success, which has also reached Australia, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the US, comes at a time when, according to BPI figures, UK-signed artists are growing their share of the albums market in several key overseas territories.

In Germany, the world’s fourth largest music market with annual album sales of 120.1m units, UK artists’ share of the artist album’s market rose to 19.9% in 2006 from 14.7% in 2005.

This strong showing was led by the success of Katie Melua, whose Piece By Piece was the biggest-selling album by a UK artist in Germany last year and the second biggest-selling album of the year overall.

Other UK-signed artists who performed well in Germany in 2006 included James Blunt (Back To Bedlam was the eighth biggest-selling artist album of the year); Robbie Williams (Rudebox was the 10th top seller) and Bullet For My Valentine (their debut album The Poison ranked at 85 in the year-end best sellers).

In keeping with the patriotic theme, UK major EMI enjoyed particular success in Germany: 18 of the Top 40 best-selling UK titles were by artists signed to its various labels, including obvious names such as Coldplay and The Beatles, but also the likes of Placebo and Massive Attack.

In France, the world’s fifth largest music market with CD album sales of 75.7m units in 2006, UK acts’ share of the top 250 artist albums rose for the second successive year, from 7.3% in 2004, to 10.2% in 2005 and 10.7% in 2006.

While this is considerably lower than the level of penetration in Germany, the BPI explains that success is harder to come by in France compared to other European territories, due to the dominance of domestic repertoire – in 2006, French artists accounted for 63% of all sales.

As in Germany, James Blunt and Robbie Williams were key contributors in terms of sales and airplay: Blunt’s Back To Bedlam was the biggest-selling album by a UK artist in France last year and the 11th biggest-selling album of the year overall; Williams’ Intensive Care was the 18th top artist album overall, while his single Advertising Space was the UK’s biggest airplay hit on French radio with 4,006 plays.

An early contender for the UK airplay crown for 2007 is likely to be Mika. His single Relax, Take It Easy recently topped the charts in France, and Universal director of international Chris Dwyer says that this success was based on strong radio support.

“It is a phenomenal international success. We are close to selling 2m units, ex-UK,” she says. “It is a combination of having a fantastic album, his image and a record that fits well with radio formats. He had top five airplay hits pretty much across the board.”