4G and Tablets to Drive Growth As Britain Becomes a Digital Music Nation

Published on: 8th Feb 2013

­The enormous potential of next-generation in-car audio systems, networked home audio systems, smart TVs and tablets, combined with faster Internet and 4G networks, will catapult consumer take-up of digital music services to even greater heights, confirms a new report published by the UK's recording industry trade body The BPI.

These new opportunities for record companies, retailers and artists are already founded on widespread adoption and awareness of digital music services amongst consumers. A fifth of all British music buyers have now fully transitioned to digital and almost 3 in 10 people in the UK having purchased downloads or streamed music content legally in the last year.

Commenting on the rapid growth of digital music in the UK, Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive, said, "There has rightly been a lot of focus in the past few weeks on High Street music retail. That will continue - we must do all we can to serve music fans who love CDs and vinyl. But as well as great music stores, Britain is blessed with a world-beating array of digital music services, which fans rate very highly for ease of use and value for money.

"And this is just the beginning. Labels are striking innovative new deals with mobile networks, hardware manufacturers, app developers and start-ups. The music fan will be the clear winner, as digital services evolve to deliver even richer music experiences via super-fast broadband and 4G to tablets, smart TVs and the next generation of in-car audio."

Digital music hits the high notes

Digital now accounts for 99.6% of singles sold, boosting sales to record volumes for the fifth successive year. Digital has resurrected the UK market for singles - with 183.3m digital single tracks sold in 2012, a more than five-fold increase in the space of a decade.

Almost one in five (19.6%) consumers have fully transitioned from physical to digital music, preferring to buy all their music in download format. New data showed the average music spend of legal only music consumers (£33.43) to be substantially more than the spend of filesharers (£26.64).

EMI's Music Consumer Insight Team also found extremely high customer satisfaction with the current range of music subscription services - 93% of consumers stated their satisfaction. A quarter of users gave their service full marks (10/10) on value for money, with nearly three quarters (73%) awarding them seven out of 10 or better, according to a survey carried out by YouGov.

 

Tags: [mobile music]  [UK]