Homegrown talent helped the UK music industry keep sales over the £1 billion mark last year, pushed to the impressive marker by releases launched by the likes of Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Rita Ora.
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Though CD album sales fell from 60 million in 2013 to 55 million in 2014, purchases made in support of the acts named above saw the UK music industry pull in £1.03 billion last year.
Published by the ‘British Phonographic Industry‘, this figure comes arm in arm with news that the highest-selling albums in the UK last year were all released by British acts, marking the first time this has happened since the ‘Official Charts‘ were founded in 1997.
On the good news, former BPI chairman Tony Wadsworth shared:
The U.K. recorded music industry invests in a truly global business, as labels continue to find, develop, support and succeed with world class artists making world-class music. Record labels are also at the forefront of the transformation of the creative economy, and our businesses are starting to see sustained growth in a future which benefits creators and consumers alike.
Billboard Biz adds:
In total, Brits listened to 14.8 billion audio streams in 2014, which equates to around 560 streams for every U.K. household and accounted for 12.6% of all music consumed in 2014, up from 6.2% in 2013 when the U.K. annual streaming total stood at 7.5 million streams. According to figures released Jan. 1 by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), the U.K.’s streaming subscription business climbed 65% in 2014 to total £175 million ($270 million) in retail sales.
Since debuting in 2012, Ora has sold over 3 million singles worldwide, seeing her Iggy Azalea– led cut ‘Black Widow’ surpass sales of 2 million units in the December of last year.