The High Street resurgence has continued into 2016, as entertainment market share continues to grow for physical retailers.
Data from Kantar Worldpanel for the 12 weeks ending April 10 shows high street and grocery stores accounting for 69.8% of entertainment spend – up from 67.5% last year. And music is still a key driver, as the best performing category in a slightly disappointing quarter. While games fell by 8% and video dipped 6%, music was relatively flat, only down 1%.
Fiona Keenan, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “Despite recent high profile casualties for high street fashion retailers, the performance of bricks and mortar entertainment stores has demonstrated the strong appeal this channel still holds for consumers. High street entertainment spend declined by just 2% this quarter in contrast with a 12% fall online.”
Despite a slight dip in share on last year, Amazon held on to its crown as the top retailer. HMV’s strong performance across music and video saw it move into second place, overtaking Tesco. While it still sits five percentage points behind Amazon, HMV did close the gap within the quarter to within one percentage point – a sign that the retailer is very much back in consumers’ minds.
Keenan commented: “Such a strong performance from HMV has not been seen since it entered administration in 2013. HMV has really focused on creating an in-store environment that stimulates and excites consumers like it did in its heyday. This focus is clearly reflected in the fact that over half of its sales this quarter came from customers who hadn’t planned to make a purchase – significantly higher than the market average of 38%.”
David Bowie’s death in January saw both Blackstar and compilation Best Of Bowie in the Top 5 albums for the quarter – the last time one artist had multiple albums in the Top 5 in a single quarter was Adele with 21 and 19 in 2014. Now That’s What I Call Music! 93 secured the overall top spot, with a quarter of its sales bought as a gift. Adele’s 25, however, took the No.1 gifted spot. Some 1.25 million copies have been sold as a gift since it came out in November – already 180,000 more than 21, released over five years ago.
Keenan added: “Some 14% of the population now has a music subscription service and paid-for Spotify subscriptions are growing at 25%. Yet the CD is still the most popular way to consume music content. One in four music consumers buy only CDs and have not made the move to digital or streaming services."
FOLLOW 
