Variety of UK impartial document retailers hits 10-year excessive
The variety of impartial document retailers within the UK has hit a 10-year excessive, in response to new trade findings.
The digital leisure and retail affiliation (ERA) has stated that there at the moment are 461 indie document retailers within the UK, which is 122 greater than 10 years in the past (by way of BBC).
The ERA’s 2024 Yearbook (printed right this moment, March 6), which comprises statistics on the music, video and gaming sectors, additionally discovered that the UK music market was value £2.2billion final 12 months. 84 per cent of this was attributed to streaming subscriptions.
The variety of retailers bodily promoting music, nevertheless – like supermarkets and specialist chains – fell from 10,391 to 2,486 in that interval.
The demand for vinyl information, in the meantime, continued to extend for the sixteenth 12 months in a row. With 6.5million offered, it took total gross sales above £170million.
2.2million of these information have been reportedly offered via impartial shops. Different findings included that £110million of the general gross sales have been generated by older releases.
CEO Kim Bayley stated in an announcement: “Regardless of largely being run by owner-managers, indies have seen off competitors from a few of the largest and best-funded firms within the land.
“Indies have discovered their area of interest and they’re right here to remain.
“It reveals that, regardless of the overwhelming success of music streaming, many music followers stay dedicated to the excessive road bodily music shopping for expertise.”
The findings come after UK vinyl gross sales reached their highest ranges since 1990 in 2023.
Taylor Swift‘s ‘1989 (Taylor’s Model)’ was the best-selling album of the 12 months, adopted by The Rolling Stones’ ‘Hackney Diamonds’.
Within the US, in the meantime, one in each 15 vinyl information offered in 2023 was by Swift.
This 12 months’s Report Retailer Day will happen throughout the UK on Saturday, April 20, giving followers the possibility to purchase particular one-off collectable releases on vinyl, cassette and extra from a whole lot of artists.
The 1975, David Bowie, Daft Punk, Blur, Lily Allen, Gorillaz, Elton John, Paramore and Noel Gallagher’s Excessive Flying Birds are amongst artists collaborating. You’ll be able to try the complete listing of releases right here.
This week David Byrne additionally introduced that he’s protecting Paramore’s ‘Onerous Instances’ for Report Retailer Day 2024.