Top Gun: Maverick
U.K. Home Entertainment Market Revenue Topped Record $12.5 Billion in 2022 — Driven by Streaming
January 10, 2023
Sales of movies, music and video games across digital and physical formats in the United Kingdom soared to a record $12.5 billion (£11.1 billion) in 2022, according to preliminary figures from digital entertainment and retail association ERA. The total was up 6.9% from $11.7 billion in 2021, and an impressive 39% spike from almost $9 billion in sales in pre-pandemic 2019.
The main driver of growth continues to be streaming and digital formats, which reached $12.28 billion (£10.1 billion), up 8.4% from $11.32 billion in 2021. Packaged-media sales fell an average of 6% across video, games and music.
The fastest growing sector in 2022 was video, up 14.4% to $5.4 billion (£4.4 billion), followed by music, up 3% to $2.4 billion (£2 billion), and games, up 2.3% to $5.7 billion (£4.7 billion).
Games continues to represent the largest sector of sales, accounting for 42.1% of the total, with video within touching distance on 40.0% and music on 17.9%.
The leading titles in each sector were FIFA 23 (games), Top Gun: Maverick featuring Tom Cruise (video), and Harry’s House by Harry Styles (music).
| HOW ENTERTAINMENT FARED IN 2022 ($ million) |
| 2021 | 2022 | % change vs 2021 | ||
| Music | Physical | $354.5 million | $340.9 million | -3.8% |
| Downloads | $66.9 million | $55.2 million | -17.5% | |
| Streaming | $1.83 billion | $1.94 billion | 5% | |
| Total Music | $2.3 billion | $2.4 billion | 3% | |
| Video | Physical Retail | $287 million | $254 million | -11.5% |
| Physical Rental | $15 million | $12 million | -19.4% | |
| Digital | $4.4 billion | $5.1 billion | 16.2% | |
| Total Video | $4.6 billion | $5.4 billion | 14.4% | |
| Games | Physical | $621.5 million | $594 million | -4.5% |
| Digital | $4.9 billion | $5 billion | 3.1% | |
| Total Games | $5.5 billion | $5.6 billion | 2.3% | |
| Total Entertainment | Physical | $1.2 billion | $1 billion | -6.0% |
| Digital (streaming) | $11.3 billion | $13.4 billion | 8.4% | |
| Total Entertainment | $12.5 billion | $13.4 billion | 6.9% |
| HOW ENTERTAINMENT HAS FLOURISHED THROUGH PANDEMIC AND RECESSION |
| 2019 | 2022 | % Change | |
| Video | £2,610.6m | £4,432.2m | +69.8% |
| Games | £3,764.6m | £4,664.4m | +23.9% |
| Music | £1,599.4m | £1,986.9m | +24.2% |
| Home Entertainment | £7,974.6m | £11,083.4m | +39% |
“Despite pandemic, political uncertainty and recession, entertainment has continued to soar,” ERA Chairman Ben Drury said in a statement. “Growth of nearly 40% since 2019 is extraordinary. Few would have believed we would retain the huge bounce in revenues seen when the pandemic lockdown kept people at home, but these numbers show that even amid recession, people are determined to maintain their spending on entertainment.”
Video had another bumper year in 2022 with revenue up 14.4% to $5.35 billion, from $4.67 billion, driven mainly by subscription streaming from Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ and Now TV.
Subscription video on demand revenue grew by 17.6% to $4.6 billion, compared with $3.9 billion in 2021, and now accounts for 87% of the video market.
The largest physical format, DVD, fell 22.1% to $142.3 million, from $161.8 million, but sales of premium formats Blu-ray Disc and 4K UHD Blu-ray spiked 7% to $111.4 million, from $104.1 million in 2021.
The biggest-selling video title of the year was Paramount Home Entertainment’s Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise’s sequel to the 1986 original, which sold 1.1 million copies, more than 800,000 of them as digital sales.
“Video has faced the double whammy of a dearth of new releases caused by the pandemic lockdown on top of the [consumer] change from physical to digital, but 2022 saw the sector at an another all-time high and well-ahead of its 2008 physical peak of $3.5 billion,” said ERA CEO Kim Bayley. “The success of Top Gun: Maverick and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Spider-Man: No Way Home shows the centrality of new releases to drive excitement in the video market.”
Video games remain the largest of entertainment’s three core sectors, accounting for 42.1% of total entertainment revenue in 2022. Sales grew by 2.3% to $5.6 billion, compared with $5.5 billion in 2021.
Games is the most fragmented of the three sectors with channels ranging from traditional packaged discs to console downloads, PC games, mobile and tablet games and a variety of other subscription and token-based playing mechanisms.
As expected, physical games sales were soft, falling 4.5% to $594 million, compared with $622 million in 2021 and now account for just 10% of the overall sector.
Conversely, the best performer was console downloads, up 12.2% to $880.5 million, from $785 million in 2021. These are still significantly smaller, however, than mobile and tablet games, which were up 3.2% to $1.7 billion and “other digital” up 0.2% to $2 billion, from $1.99 billion.
The biggest-selling console game was FIFA 23, which sold 2.4 million units across digital and physical formats in the final installment of the 29-year partnership between publisher EA and the FIFA world soccer governing body.
“Gaming remains the often-unheralded leader of the entertainment market,” Bayley said. “While growth at 2.3% was lower than that of video or music, its scale is enormous and in terms of innovation and excitement it continues to set the pace for the entire entertainment sector.”