Following a 17% decline in DVD’s and Blu-rays, digital media revenue beat disc for the first time in the UK last year, according to a report by the Entertainment Retailers Association.
“The figures, revealed by the Entertainment Retailers Association, show a 17% decline in sales of DVDs and Blu-rays,” wrote Tech Radar. “This means that physical sales value has now dipped below £1 billion, to £894 million.”
According to the Entertainment Retailers Association report, the physical medium as a whole, which includes music, movies, and games, also dropped by 14.9%, generating just £2.19 billion compared to the £4.12 billion that digital received.
“For the first time in 2016 the video market became a majority (58%) digital business with revenues from downloads and subscription services now exceeding those of DVD and Blu-ray discs,” explained the report, which also added that “Digital services account for 57% of music revenues and 74% of the games market.”
“The music, video and games industries were understandably nervous about the advent of new digital services, but these figures provide resounding evidence of the benefits of our members’ investment in innovation,” said Entertainment Retailers Association CEO Kim Bayley. “To have added over £1bn in new revenues in just four years is an incredible achievement. To put it another way, take away today’s digital services and the entertainment market would be barely a third the size it is today.”
The report also revealed that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the best-selling “video” of the year, selling 2.3 million units, while Now That’s What I Call Music 95 was listed as the best-selling album with 908,500 units, and FIFA 17 as the best-selling game, with 2.5 million units sold.
Digital video, which includes video streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, received a 22.8% increase in 2016, while music streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal increased by a large 65.1%.
Digital game sales, which include the largest PC game distributor Steam, rose 12.1%, while their physical counterparts fell by 16.4%.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.