According to the ERA figures, the UK music, video and games markets could break the £10 billion sales barrier in 2022.

The figures show that the music, video and games markets generated another all-time-record sales total of £9,716.1m, its ninth successive year of growth.

The ERA says that contrary to fears that 2020’s lockdown boom in streaming was a one-off, digital streams and sales continued to grow through 2021 with music revenues up another 8.7% and video up 13.3%. Only games faltered with sales down 3.3%, but that was still nearly 14% more than in 2019, the last full year before Covid-19 struck.

ERA CEO, Kim Bayley, said, “The entire sector was braced for revenues to settle down in 2021 after 2020 grew an astonishing 18.7%, but growth continued – for the ninth successive year. Strikingly this growth is increasingly independent of new release activity; the vast majority of this growth being driven by digital services making entertainment more accessible and convenient than ever before. If we can repeat this success in 2022, the UK entertainment market will exceed £10bn for the first time”. For further information, including a breakdown of the figures by sector, click here.