UK music companies report revenue surge from streaming services

Music companies across the UK saw revenues grow at the fastest rate since Britpop's height two decades ago, as services like Spotify and Apple Music brought more income to the industry from streaming than through CD sales for the first time.

On average, British labels saw a 10.6% increase in earnings to £839m throughout 2017, thanks to homegrown artists such as Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Dua Lipa and Stormzy, whose digital popularity brought about the most accelerated rate of growth in the industry since 1995 when the likes of Oasis, Blur and Pulp ruled the roost.

Music companies reported a 45% year-on-year increase in revenue from subscription streaming to £347m, as the industry which had struggled for more than a decade thanks to illegal piracy reaped the benefits of its most loyal consumers turning to legitimate services such as Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL and Amazon Music.

Elsewhere, royalty income from the sale of CDs, something that had been in a gradual state of decline since the advent of the digital music era in 1999, picked up 0.7% on 2016 to £246.9m last year and UK vinyl sales expanded for a tenth consecutive year to a 26-year high of 4.1m units

Music industry body BPI said that while the £839m collected by labels as a result of streaming, downloads, physical sales and licensing for use in films, TV and computer games was the highest figure since 2010, it was still just short of being a third lower than the UK music industry's peak year of 2001, when revenues peaked at £1.2bn.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, said there was no sign of the industry's growth spurt slowing down anytime soon either, with innovations such as Amazon's Echo and Alexa, promoting the playing of music around the home, as well as the launch of YouTube's premium music service, likely set to fuel the fire even further.

"The changes labels have made to their business models and their investment in new talent have borne fruit," Taylor said.

"We are likely to see a continuing rise in 2018, with increasing awareness about consumers about the benefits of music streaming, and new developments that are likely to encourage the uptake of more subscriptions," he added.