The popularity of Adele is so mighty that even the soccer-mad U.K. is bowing down to the singer.
Her latest album, “25,” has become the country’s best selling home entertainment title of 2015, narrowly squeezing the EA Sports “FIFA 16″computer game in to second place.
The figures released by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), include sales of both digital and physical copies of titles.
RELATED: Billboard: Adele’s ’25’ is officially the top-selling album of 2015
Adele’s album, released on November 20, sold just over 2.6 million copies in the six weeks to the end of the year on top of selling more than 7 million copies in the U.S.
Along with Adele’s success, fellow British musicians like Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith helped secure another successful year for the UK music industry, with Sheeran being named as 2015’s most streamed artist in Britain according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
“The soaring popularity of music streaming and the burgeoning vinyl revival mean that UK music consumption rose again in 2015,” Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI and Brit Awards said in a statement.
The ERA says surging digital revenues pushed the UK’s total entertainment sales to an all-time high of £6.1 billion pounds ($8.9 billion).
“Ten years ago the entertainment business was on the edge of a precipice. Thanks to huge investments by the likes of Apple and Steam and Netflix and Spotify, there has been a significant turnaround,” said Kim Bayley, chief executive of ERA, said in a statement.
The ERA says music streaming services saw sales rise by nearly 50 percent in 2015 while online video streaming companies like Netflix and Amazon helping to push sales beyond the billion pound mark for the first time.
Not Over For The Oldies Despite the rise of digital, physical formats for entertainment remain the choice for millions of consumers. ERA figures show vinyl album sales remained relatively small but recorded jumped 65 percent from 2014 to £42 million pounds. And according to the association CD sales in 2015 fell at the slowest rate in a decade, hitting sales of £468 million. That number proving more resilient than music downloads, which contracted 13 percent to record revenues of less than £300 million pounds. This article first appeared at CNBC.com.
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