Fifa 21 and Frozen 2 top digital sales of 2020

The UK spent a record £9.05bn ($12bn) on home entertainment in 2020, with more than 80p in every pound going on digital formats, new figures reveal.

The biggest-selling video game was the latest Fifa 21 football game, with more than two million downloads and discs sold.

Disney’s Frozen 2 was the most-purchased movie, while Lewis Capaldi topped the 2020 album sales chart.

The Entertainment Retailers’ Association (ERA) published the report.

It included data supplied by the Official Charts Company and the Interactive Software Federation of Europe.

However, it did not reveal the most-streamed television programmes and movies because services such as Netflix, Prime Video and BBC iPlayer do not make the data publicly available.

The ERA said digital services had grown faster than ever before, with revenue reaching £7.8bn, up £1.4bn on 2019.

The group’s chief executive Kim Bayley described it as a “dramatic leap” which “filled the gap left by shuttered cinemas, concert halls and retail stores” while the country spent months in lockdown.

“If there was ever a year in which we needed entertainment, it was 2020,” she said.

Sales of most physical entertainment formats such as DVDs, Blu-Rays and CDs were all down, with the exception of vinyl which saw sales increase 13% to £110m.

Music download sales were also down by almost 20%, as consumers switched to streaming services

The most money was spent on video games (£4.2bn), followed by movies and television (£3.2bn) and music (£1.5bn).

Source: Interactive Software Federation of Europe

Source: The Official Charts Company, excludes streaming and rental

Source: The Official Charts Company, includes physical sales, downloads and streaming