British bands help UK record best-ever album sales

A rash of new British acts like The Streets and Keane propelled UK album sales to a record 237 million units in the year to the end of September, confounding predictions that music downloads would finish off the humble compact disc.

However, figures from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) yesterday showed downloading music from the Internet was also accelerating.

Almost two-thirds of all approved downloads for the 12-month period took place in the final quarter, bolstered by the popularity of Apple Computer's iPod player and high-profile launches of on-line music stores Napster, Sony Connect and iTunes.

Last week, the world's third-largest music group, EMI, said the industry was rebounding as the firm's digital music revenue more than quadrupled in the six months to September 30 and as it tackled illegal online file exchanging.

A BPI spokesman said the industry was not out of the woods yet but the iPod and online music stores had helped. The number of tracks illegally traded worldwide fell to 700 million from one billion in the year to June, industry figures show.

Physical sales in the UK rose three per cent in the third quarter to 51.9 million albums, helping British record companies earn £1.22 billion over the year, an increase of 2.7 per cent.

British singers dominated the singles chart, while melancholic solo artist Dido and former Pop Idol winner Will Young topped album sales over the year.

Although the BPI's figures show that the ailing CD single format continued its decline with an 11.7 per cent fall, soaring demand for singles such as Outkast's Hey Ya over the internet actually ramped up overall sales by 9.4 per cent.

And the industry body also said music DVDs were flying off the shelves, with sales leaping 52 per cent year on year during the traditionally quiet third quarter. The format now accounts for four per cent of the music market, almost as big as the singles sector.