7digital Blog

The latest BPI figures released earlier this month show, yet again, an upswing in digital music consumption in the UK.

Digital album sales increased by 14.8% to 30.5 million, with 16 albums selling more than 100,000 digital copies in 2012 – but it still wasn’t enough to make up the shortfall in physical sales. Overall album sales dropped by more than 10% in 2012 as the CD market shrank by a fifth.

Streaming has also seen strong growth, albeit from a smaller base, with more than 3.7 billion track streams in 2012. As varying forms of digital music access continue to grow, it’s clear any remaining resistance to digital is diminishing.

It’s also clear that one level of ‘access’ does not suffice for all music fans, and it’s important to keep in mind not everyone will want only downloads or only streaming. While some services, such as Spotify, have refocused on more limited options of access, the right model is the one that offers access to your music, anywhere in the world, on any device.

This ‘multi-access’ is the music industry’s best option in making up the physical decline.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2013 at 4:57 pm and is filed under B2B Services, B2C services, Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.