Business News HMV Timeline Retail

HMV overtakes Amazon as UK’s biggest retailer of physical music

By | Published on Monday 19 January 2015

HMV

Comeback kid HMV says it has overtaken Amazon to reclaim its crown as the UK’s largest retailer of physical music releases, reports City AM.

Total sales in the year up to December apparently reached £365.7 million – up from £311.2 million in 2013 – boosted in part by “very strong” Black Friday sales. CD sales rose 1.5%, while vinyl sales jumped 170% to their highest level at the retailer for 20 years. DVD and BluRay sales were also up 0.5 per cent.

CEO of HMV owner Hilco, Paul McGowan, told City AM: “HMV has captured more and more market share in a year when major new movie releases have been scarce and there have been only a few major album successes. With a bumper year of new releases already planned for 2015 we expect to have overall growth in like-for-like DVD and Blu-Ray sales as well as continued growth in the physical music sector with vinyl also expected to continue its revival”.

One of the interesting things to note in all this – at a time when media focus is largely placed on the rise of streaming services and the resurgence of vinyl – is the buoyancy of the good old compact disc.

The Entertainment Retailer Association’s year-end figures showed that, while CD sales are still declining, physical still accounted for just over 50% of key recorded music revenues last year, and the vast majority of that income comes from CD. So, while the media and record industry seems to have written off the shiny discs already, consumers haven’t followed suit quite so quickly.



READ MORE ABOUT: |