Number of impartial report retailers in UK hits 10-year excessive

The variety of impartial report retailers within the UK is at a 10-year excessive, in accordance with an business group.

The digital leisure and retail affiliation (ERA) mentioned there are actually 461 indie report retailers within the UK – 122 greater than 10 years in the past.

By distinction, the variety of retailers bodily promoting music – corresponding to supermarkets and specialist chains – fell by 8,000 in comparison with 2014.

It means simply 8% of all music gross sales are actually in a bodily kind.

The ERA’s 2024 Yearbook, containing statistics on the music, video and gaming sectors, discovered the UK music market was price £2.2bn final yr.

It attributed a large proportion of this – 84% – to streaming subscriptions.

But it additionally discovered the demand for vinyl records elevated for the sixteenth yr in a row, with 6.5 million offered, taking total gross sales above £170m.

It mentioned 2.2 million of these records have been offered by way of impartial shops, and £110m of the general gross sales have been generated by older albums relatively than new releases.

Jimmy Broklesby, 24, works at an impartial music store in Frome, Somerset, which sells vinyl and CD records.

"The gross sales of vinyl are fairly constant and [have] clearly gone up for us over the few years. But within the week for us CDs are our predominant promoting product," he mentioned.

"More of it will get launched than I feel individuals are conscious of: reissues, anniversary editions, particular variants, and all these sorts of issues do bump up the amount that we promote."

"There’s clearly nothing fallacious with streaming, I stream myself, however I purchase the album if I prefer it. There’s a stylish facet of it, vinyl is cool to individuals – it has that form of wow issue," Jimmy added.

"We’ve received quite a lot of clients who’ve been shopping for vinyl for the reason that 60s, and we have a a lot youthful crowd which can be actually into artists like Olivia Rodriguez and The 1975."

CEO of the ERA, Kim Bayley mentioned: "Despite largely being run by owner-managers, indies have seen off competitors from a number of the largest and best-funded corporations within the land.

"Indies have discovered their area of interest and they’re right here to remain.

"It exhibits that, regardless of the overwhelming success of music streaming, many music followers stay dedicated to the excessive road bodily music shopping for expertise."

As a part of an effort to concentrate on impartial retailers, the ERA holds a Record Store Day in April every year.

Elsewhere, Barbie was the most well-liked movie to observe at dwelling, EA Sports FC 24 was the best-selling console sport and The Highlights by The Weeknd was the most important album of the yr.

Other notable findings included:

• Video was the most important sector of leisure, in comparison with gaming and music
• 82% of people that stream video on demand used Netflix
• Smartphones have been the most typical gadget for listening to music, overtaking in-car radio for the primary time
• The finest performing tune of the yr was Flowers by Miley Cyrus

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