Sales of vinyl and CD music rose 7.9% to £164 million ($213 million) in the UK in the first six months of 2024, driven by Taylor Swift's all-powerful, seemingly unstoppable success, according to media reports. annual figures from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA).
Released in April, Swift's eleventh studio album Department of Tormented Poets is the singer's fastest-selling album in the UK, moving the equivalent of 270,000 units across all formats in its first seven days, according to figures from Official Charts (OCC).
Until today, Department of Tormented Poets has spent eight non-consecutive weeks at No.1 in the UK — beating Swift's previous best run of five weeks at the summit with 2022 Midnight — making it the best-selling album in the country so far this year by some distance.
Mid-year sales for Department of Tormented Poets totaling 542,000 UK equivalent units across all formats, just under half of which (251,000) were physical purchases, according to ERA data for the first 26 weeks of 2024. Department of Tormented Poets In addition, just under 20,000 digital downloads were sold.
The second best-selling album year-to-date is The Weeknd's Better times with 220,000 equivalent sales units.
Swift was also behind the six-month's best-selling physical single, “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, which topped the UK Official Singles Chart for a week in May, selling more than 16,500 copies on CD , the only physical form that was available. on, ERA reports.
In total, Swift had six of the Top 20 best-selling albums across all formats (digital and physical) in the UK during the sales period, including fan favorites 1989 (Taylor Edition), Lover, Midnight and Folklore.
The singer's ubiquitous success helped boost physical and music downloads to £164 million ($213 million) in the UK in the first half of 2024, up 7.9% year-on-year, it said the CEO of ERA Kim Baileywho also credited April's Record Day with further boosting retailers' revenues.
ERA's half-year sales figures exclude music streaming, which accounts for more than 88% of all music sales in the UK ERA said total music streaming consumption was up 11% year-on-year in the first six months of year, but did not provide value data.
Breaking down physical sales, vinyl album purchases were up 13.5% year-on-year to just over £86m ($111m), while CD sales were up 3.2% year-on-year to 58 £ million ($75 million) . In total, 8.5 million physical albums were sold in the UK during the period, ERA said.
As a result, growth in physical sales and music downloads outpaced growth in video sales (which includes DVD and Blu-ray sales, video downloads and digital rental), which totaled £214 million ($277 million), up up 5.4% year-over-year, excluding revenue from streaming video services like Netflix or Apple TV.
Music sales also outpaced corresponding growth in video games (combined physical and digital downloads), which fell almost 30% year-on-year to just under £350 million ($454 million) due to what ERA called a “soft circulation” in the first half of the year.
The United Kingdom is the world's third largest on record behind the United States and Japan with sales of $1.9 billion in 2023, according to the IFPI.
