The latest figures from digital and entertainment retail association ERA show solid growth for streaming and a further surge for vinyl.
Following the BPI unit figures, ERA has issued its interim annual figures based on value.
Sales of streaming subscriptions and music product reached a new all-time-high of £2.453 billion in 2025, an increase of 4.2% year-on-year. Over the past decade, music income has increased by more than 120%.
Revenues from streaming subscriptions increased 3.2% to £2.045bn as they topped £2 billion for the first time. It marks a slowdown in growth from the prior year’s 7.8% increase. The income increase lags behind the 5.5% volume growth in streams reported by the BPI, although the ERA results may have been affected by the timing of price increases from various platforms in recent years.
In contrast, physical music value sales outperformed the unit sales growth in 2025, even though UK inflation is no longer as high as recent years.
According to ERA, physical music sales grew 11.5% to £368.1 million in 2025, propelled by an 18.5% increase in vinyl revenues and a 95% increase in other physical formats (predominantly cassette) to £4.6m. CD revenues were down 1% to £125.0m.
The BPI unit figures showed overall physical music sales edging up by 1.4% as vinyl units increased by 13.3%.
The results from ERA coincide with the confirmed date for Record Store Day – April 18, 2026. More than 280 UK record shops will take part in the 19th edition of the vinyl celebration – a period that coincides with the start of the vinyl revival.
ERA’s figures show that physical formats increased their share of music revenues to 15%, their highest share since 2021.
For the second year running, Taylor Swift had the biggest-selling album and biggest-selling vinyl album. The Life Of A Showgirl had sales of 642,469 albums, 147,382 of them on vinyl. The biggest single of the year was Ordinary by Alex Warren which generated the equivalent of 2.18m sales.
As reported by Music Week, 2025 saw a strong showing by emerging UK artists such as Olivia Dean, Lola Young and Skye Newman, alongside established acts such as Sam Fender, Sleep Token, Charl XCX and Ed Sheeran.
ERA credited a “combined effort by digital services, retailers and record labels to support homegrown talent”.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley said: “Streaming services in the UK fund around 60 different programmes supporting music, with a third of them focusing on new and emerging UK talent. Record shops too are playing their part, promoting more than 4,000 instore and outstore performances a year, the majority of them featuring UK artists. Streaming services and retailers are committed to supporting new UK music and the emergence of a new wave of UK artists is vindicating their approach.”
Streaming services and retailers are committed to supporting new UK music and the emergence of a new wave of UK artists is vindicating their approach
Kim Bayley
Overall, streaming services and retailers grew UK revenues from music, video and games by 7.1% in 2025 to a new all-time-record of £13.26bn, according to ERA’s interim figures. This was more than four times the 1.5% GDP growth predicted for the UK economy by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Entertainment’s 7.1% growth rate in 2025 was more than double the growth seen in 2024 (3.3%) and the fastest growth seen since the pandemic year of 2020 (24.1%).
Entertainment sales have grown by more than 120% over the past 10 years, 10 times faster than the UK economy which has grown just 12% over the same period.
Broken down by sector, revenue from games grew more than seven times more than the UK economy over the same period (86%), music grew more than 10 times (124%) and video more than 14 times more than the UK economy (171%).
Kim Bayley added: “This result vindicates the transformational role of streaming services and retailers in driving the entertainment sector to new heights, thanks to a potent combination of technology, investment and innovation. While conditions may be tough in the wider economy, streaming services and retailers are winning a greater share of consumer spending and proving their central role in the UK’s creative economy, driving revenues for musicians, filmmakers and games developers.”
The combined value of the music, video and games sectors is now nearly double the £6.738bn recorded as recently as 2017 and 66% higher than the last pre-pandemic year of 2019.
“Approaching five years after the first lockdown when entertainment revenues leapt an extraordinary 25% in a year, it is now clear that it was more than a blip,” said Bayley. “It marked a long-term shift in entertainment spending which streaming services and retailers have solidified with a string of innovations.”
For a second successive year, video (across physical and streaming video on-demand) was the largest of the three sectors surveyed by ERA, with growth increasing to 8% to reach £5.49 bn.
Music played a key role in the biggest-selling video title of the year, Wicked. It moved 983,119 units in 2025, a substantial increase on 2024’s biggest seller Deadpool & Wolverine (561,917).
The games sector increased 7.4% to £5.36bn, achieving more in 12 months than it did in the four years between 2021 and 2024 (6.7%). A key factor was an 8.8% increase in revenues from mobile and tablet games. There was also 11.5% growth in full-game console downloads to £857.6m.
ERA has published its definitive statistics on the value of the UK music, video and games sectors every year for the past 26 years.
PHOTO: Banquet