2012 was a record breaking year for entertainment downloads. Digital downloads of music, TV shows, films and video games topped £1bn in the UK for the first time. Digital sales now account for one quarter of the sector.
According to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), UK digital entertainment sales rose 11.4% year on year to £1.033bn. Digital music sales rose 15% year on year to £333m, although that doesn’t include services such as Spotify or Deezer.
The biggest chunk of the digital entertainment sector remains online gaming, driven by the ever popular World of Warcraft and the like, representing £552m of sales
The digital increase coincided with a sharp decline in physical sales of CDs, DVDs and video games (75% of the market) which decreased by 17.6% in 2012. In all, the UK home entertainment market declined 12% to £4.21bn.
Kim Bayley, director general of the ERA said: “Breaching the £1bn barrier is an incredible achievement for the UK’s digital entertainment retailers and reflects their huge investment in new and innovative services which means you can buy music, video and games literally at any time of the day and wherever you are.”
