UK Music Market Growth Flat For 2013 But Only With Addition Of Streaming Subscriptions

This week BPI/Official Charts Company released stats on the "overall value of the UK recorded music market" which they peg at £1.04 billion, down 0.5% over 2012. Overall album and singles sales slipped though there was growth for both digital and vinyl album sales. This was the first year the value of streaming service subscriptions was included or the drop would have been bigger. But this year's subscription streaming market was up 34% over last year so streaming growth is solid even without considering ad-related revenue.

Tim Ingham at Music Week breaks down the year's sales and overall value stats for the UK from BPI/Official Charts Company data.

Key stats regarding 2013 UK recorded music market:

Overall value of recorded music market: £1.04 billion, down 0.5% over 2012

Overall value of albums market: £772.1 million, down 3.6%

Overall value of singles market: £167.8 million, down 1.6%

Overall value of subscription streaming market: £103 million, up 34%

This was the first year subscription streaming market value was included. If that was included last year, there would have been a larger drop though that still looks like potentially good news overall. In addition, ad-supported streaming revenue from music services and sites like YouTube were also excluded which is another place where revenue is likely to be growing.

Overall streaming from music services was double that of last year so the ad revenue is worth considering as that becomes a bigger part of the picture.

In addition:

Overall album sales dropped 6.4%

Overall singles sales dropped 3.4% ("for the first time in recent history")

Digital album sales were up 6.4%

Vinyl album sales were up 101%

For more stats see Ingham's piece and related coverage at Music Week:

UK music retailers blame weak release schedule for 2013 sales decline

The Top 20 entertainment releases of 2013: music artists fail to register

More:

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/Facebook) is building a writing hub at Flux Research. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.