In charts: How we spent £6.3bn on digital music, movies and games in 2016
It's official: we now spend more cash on watching films and TV via digital than we do on DVDs and Blu-Rays. And that helped entertainment sales hit a record high of £6.3bn in 2016.
Some 58 per cent of revenues in the video business came from digital, a majority for the first time as overall sales across the entertainment board grew by three per cent on the previous year to make a record 2016.
Read more: Netflix and kill: Digital movie sales overtake DVDs for the first time
“The music, video and games industries were understandably nervous about the advent of new digital services, but these figures provide resounding evidence of the benefits of our members’ investment in innovation," said Kim Bayley, chief executive of the entertainment retailers association which compiled the figures.
"To have added over £1bn in new revenues in just four years is an incredible achievement. To put it another way, take away today’s digital services and the entertainment market would be barely a third the size it is today.”
In music, digital formats accounted for 57 per cent of sales, with streaming up 65 per cent year-on-year, while in gaming 74 per cent of sales were digital, a rise of 12 per cent.
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Physical formats across the board declined 15 per cent, although vinyl and handheld games bucked the trend.
Music streaming was the fastest growing format while people switched for downloads which experienced the biggest decline of 65 per cent, more than any physical format.
In charts: How we spent our money on entertainment in 2016
