Two thirds of sales in the entertainment retail sector - ie in what we used to call the record shop sector - are now accounted for by DVD and game sales and not music. Hmm, perhaps we should be launching the CGU Daily.
That stat, published by the Entertainment Retailers Association, probably shouldn't come as any surprise given that UK music sales have declined by more than 30% since 2000, while DVD and game sales have grown by 80%, but still, it's stats like this that hammer home why the major record companies - who rely heavily on record sales - need to radically change their business models.
Commenting on the stats, ERA Chairman Paul Quirk told reporters: "These figures show the resilience and flexibility of entertainment retailers in reacting to changing consumer demand. The standout story of 2007 was clearly the outstanding performance of the computer games sector with volume up 17% and value up 26%. And with sales of consoles more than doubling in 2007 we would expect games software sales to continue to be buoyant in 2008".
The continued growth of gaming also shows why we can no longer refer to this business as the record shop or music retail sector, and why their trade body can't call itself the British Association Of Record Dealers anymore. The collapse of the Music Zone and Fopp empires added to the closure of 170 odd independent record shops mean that there are now fewer specific music stores in the UK than specific DVD and game stores - 5026 music shops, 5586 DVD shops and 7385 game stores. Wow.
The other unsurprising stat in the ERA report is that download sales continued to grow in 2007, with the value of the download market up 67.5%. This, of course, is expected to grow further this year with the arrival of DRM-free downloads, and high profile new download offers from the likes of Amazon and Play.com.