Music consumers used on-demand streaming platforms to listen to 317 billion songs, exceeding projections.
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However, the BPI has decided not to reveal financial figures from ad-funded services within these stats – a category which typically contributes less than £10m each year – and has also omitted income from music video sales, which generated £18m in 2014.
An all-time weekly record was set week-ending 12/24 with almost 7.5 billion on-demand streams.
According to Nielsen Music’s 2015 year-end report, total album sales dropped 6.1 per cent from 257 million in 2014 to 241.4 million in 2015.
That’s less than half the money brought in by payments to subscription streaming services and just 11.4% of the recorded music market’s total United Kingdom cash haul in 2015. Digital album sales fell in 2015 to 103.3 million, from 106.5 million in 2014 (-2.9%). Thanks to hugely successful albums from Adele and Taylor Swift in 25 and 1989 respectively, pop sales more than doubled its share of vinyls from 2.8% in 2014 to 5.7% in 2015.
A record 26.8 billion songs were streamed past year, new figures show – a jump of 82% on 2014.
MBW doesn’t tend to report on “Album Equivalent Sales” because, well, it’s self-evident madness, so sorry if you were expecting some of that.
R&B/Hip-Hop also showed growth in album sales, with DRAKE, THE WEEKND and KENDRICK LAMAR helping fuel an increase of 2% overall and 19% in digital album sales.
Adele’s “25”, which was on sale for only the last six weeks of the year sold 7.44 million copies, more than any album in a calendar year since 2004.
Adele’s no-streaming strategy may have worked better than was at first thought.
Yet in a move that has led to wide debate in the industry, the most popular album of the year was one that was not made available for streaming. Independents saw a 5 percent decline in sales. Catalog songs – defined as those released at least 18 months earlier, constituted 70 percent of streamed music.
Vinyl sales were up by 30 percent previous year, and you guessed it, Adele’s 25 was the best-selling vinyl album as well, with 116,000 copies.
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On Britain s full-year chart, Adele was followed by Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith – two recent English stars whose albums came out in 2014 – while fourth place went to the late Elvis Presley.
