UK streaming consumption has returned to growth, according to Official Charts Company data.
It follows a dip in audio streams after a fortnight of Covid-19 lockdown. For the chart week ending April 3, Music Week revealed a 1.2% week-on-week decline.
But in the third week of the UK lockdown, ending April 10, audio streaming figures rebounded with a 7.1% increase on the prior week. According to the latest data, the total number of weekly streams was 2,245,383,032. That’s roughly similar to the 2,249,927,519 total for the week ending March 20, ahead of the March 23 lockdown.
The figures will be a welcome boost to the market, at a time when DSPs have urged labels to keep releasing new music. The UK government has indicated that the lifting of lockdown measures is not imminent.
The increase actually came during a quiet chart week in terms of new releases. A Bill Withers collection was the only new entry in the Top 10.
With physical distribution challenged by the lockdown, DSPs are driving consumption, albeit at lower volumes. Dua Lipa made No.1 with total sales of 16,080.
The mini download boom of recent weeks has stalled, while physical sales continue to slide. Physical artist album sales were down 7.4% week-on-week to 144,523.
Physical sales now risk heading into a single digit proportion of the album market. CD, cassette and vinyl accounted for just 10.7% of album sales last week, compared to 11.5% in the prior week and 12.4% a fortnight ago.
For all albums, sales (physical and digital) were down 4.3% week-on-week, while SEA-2 was up 6.2% week-on-week. Overall, all albums increased their weekly total by 4.3%.
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