Data released by the British Phonographic Industry has revealed a 41 per cent rise in revenues from music streaming services like Spotify and Deezer, now the fastest-growing area for record labels.

Subscriptions, freemium platforms and cloud-based services from the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon combined to generate £77m for record companies in 2013. Subscriptions contributed the largest share of revenue at 71 per cent, the BPI annual review found.

Overall, digital music services in the UK now make up half of all recorded music industry revenue, with physical sales in decline. Total digital revenues grew 11.9 per cent, including a 19.5 per cent rise in revenues for digital album downloads, contributing to revenues across the industry of £730.4m.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive BPI, said: “The UKs record labels have reimagined their businesses for a world of instant mobile, global access to music, driven by social media.
With digital increasingly becoming its key source of revenue, Britains music industry is fit and ready to seize the global opportunities it offers.”

The figures do not include live performance revenues.

“It’s great that music streaming is accounting for such a large part of the UK music industry’s growth, and we’re glad to be a part of that,” Thorsten Schliesche, senior VP and GM of Europe at Napster, said commenting on the BPI figures.

“A key part of what music fans are doing is streaming and downloading music from streaming services to mobile. In fact, more than 50 per cent of Napster users stream their music on the go. We believe that this trend will continue to increase and help the music market continue to accelerate in 2014.”