Spending by U.K. music fans on streaming services exceeded £1 billion for the first time in 2019 as overall expenditure on entertainment increased to another all-time-high, according to preliminary data compiled by the Entertainment Retailers Association.
The total amount of money spent on music subscription services from the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music and Deezer is four times as much as just five years ago and 31 times the level in 2010, ERA said in a press release.
Despite decreases in sales of physical music, video and games formats, there was strong demand for digital services.
That was sufficient to produce overall entertainment market growth of 2.4 percent to £7.8 billion, its seventh consecutive year of growth.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley said, "The rise of digital entertainment services has created the biggest revolution in UK leisure habits in history."
It enabled people to access the music, video and games they love wherever and whenever they want, and transformed the fortunes of record labels, filmmakers and games developers, she added.
Lewis Capaldi's Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent was the U.K.'s biggest-selling album of 2019, followed by Ed Sheeran's No, 6 Collaborations Project and The Greatest Showman soundtrack.
Albums by Billie Eilish, George Ezra, Queen, and Ariana Grande were also among the top 10 best-selling albums in the U.K. in 2019.
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