UK revenues from video sales were up by 8 percent YoY in 2025, according to the latest interim annual figures from The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), a trade association that tracks entertainment revenues across the UK. The data shows that video sales generated £5.44 billion last year, including physical sales and rentals, digital downloads and streaming subcriptions.
The uptick in video sales represents a higher growth rate than 2024, when revenues rose by 5.1 percent YoY and overtook gaming revenues for the first time, making video the largest of the three sectors surveyed by the ERA.
Video’s growth helped push total revenues across the three sectors above £13 billion for the first time, an increase of 7.1 percent YoY. The ERA noted that this was more than four times the 1.5 percent GDP growth predicted for the UK economy by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), signalling a sharp upturn in growth for the music, video and games sector compared with 2024.
“This result vindicates the transformational role of streaming services and retailers in driving the entertainment sector to new heights, thanks to a potent combination of technology, investment and innovation,” said ERA CEO Kim Bayley. “While conditions may be tough in the wider economy, streaming services and retailers are winning a greater share of consumer spending and proving their central role in the UK’s creative economy, driving revenues for musicians, filmmakers and games developers.”
Let’s get physical
Unsurprisingly it was digital sales that made up the bulk of video revenues in 2025, with SVOD revenues climbing 8.8 percent YoY to hit £4.9 billion. And while DVD and Blu-ray sales are continuing to fall year-on-year, the speed of that decline has slowed to 4.7 percent (compared to 8 percent in 2024), representing the slowest rate of decline since 2010. The first Wicked film was the highest-selling video title of the year with 983,119 sales, according to the ERA, higher than 2024’s best-seller Deadpool & Wolverine at 561,917.
“Thanks to the investment and innovations of streaming companies the video business is now nearly the twice the size it was at the height of the DVD boom in 2004 (£2.95 billion),” said Bayley. “Video is arguably the best example of the transformational power of streaming to deliver choice, convenience and accessibility. Meanwhile there are promising signs in the physical format market with a sharp fall in the rate of decline as studios and retailers lean into physical’s distinctive benefits of quality and collectability.”
But that collectability component is much stronger in the music sector, where the renewed popularity in physical formats drove physical music sales up by 11.5 percent in 2025, and now make up 15 percent of total sales. This growth was driven by an 18.5 percent rise in vinyl revenues, and a 95 percent increase in other physical formats (predominantly cassette), while CD revenues were down by 1 percent.
Meanwhile the games sector grew by 7.4 percent in 2025, “achieving more in 12 months than it did in the four years between 2021 and 2024 (+6.7 percent)”, according to the ERA. That growth was driven by an 8.8 percent YoY rise in revenues from mobile and tablet games, outpacing the 5.5 percent growth seen in 2024.
“More than a blip”
Overall the results show strong performance for the UK entertainment market over the past decade, “in sharp contrast to the modest growth seen in UK retailing overall.” The ERA found that entertainment sales have grown by more than 120 percent over the past ten years, ten times higher than the UK economy’s growth of 12 percent over the same period. Video specifically has grown more than 14 times faster than the UK economy over the course of the decade.
And 2025 stands out as the strongest revenue growth across the three sectors since the pandemic year of 2020, when revenues were up 24.1 percent YoY.
“Approaching five years after the first lockdown when entertainment revenues leapt an extraordinary 25 percent in a year, it is now clear that it was more than a blip,” said Bayley. “It marked a long-term shift in entertainment spending which streaming services and retailers have solidified with a string of innovations.”
Follow VideoWeek on LinkedIn.
