Music sales in the UK reach highest peak ever: ‘Music is back’
An all-time record of almost £2.4 billion was achieved in sales in 2024
By Nick Reilly
Music sales in the UK have reached their highest peak ever, in what it is being rightly described as a “stunning” comeback for the music industry.
Sales previously peaked back in 2001 when artists such as Kylie Minogue, Dido and Shaggy helped consumer spend reach a peak of £2.2 billion.
But technological advances impacted further peaks, with a mixture of illegal file-sharing and the arrival of streaming services causing physical media sales – including CDs – to drop by £1 billion just over a decade later.
Now, the industry has managed to turn things around and surpass that previous peak. Last year saw spending rise by 7 per cent on 2023 to drive UK recorded music revenues to an all-time record of almost £2.4 billion.
The new figures come courtesy of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), a leading trade body which represents physical retailers and digital alternatives.
The ERA says that customers snapped up the equivalent of 201 million albums last year, while streaming generated the equivalent of 178 million album sales. This breaks the previous record of 172 million in 2004 when CD sales were at the end of their peak.
The vinyl revival shows no signs of going anywhere either, with sales of physical music rising 6 per cent to £330 million.
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was revealed as the biggest-selling album of the year, with sales figures of 783,000, which includes 112,000 vinyl copies.
Elsewhere, Noah Kahan’s Stick Season was the biggest single of the year after generating the equivalent of 2 million sales.
Kim Bayley, the chief executive of the ERA, said: “2024 was a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume.
“This is the stunning culmination of music’s comeback which has seen sales more than double since their low point in 2013. We can now say definitively — music is back.”
When combined with video and games markets, the ERA also said that sales topped £12 billion for the first time, a 12th consecutive year of growth.