Almost one in five music buyers have left the high street for good, according to the latest industry figures, as internet-savvy Britons flock to digital products such as Apple iTunes and Spotify.
The UK music industry trade body, the BPI, said 19.6% of music buyers now only purchase digital music, as more than a quarter of the population downloaded or streamed songs legally in 2012.
These figures are the latest to chart what the BPI described as the "digital music switchover" – a shift that helped sink the once-cherished high street brand HMV in January.
Homegrown acts including Adele and Ed Sheeran have led the digital charge, according to the BPI's Digital Music Nation report released on Thursday.
"There has rightly been a lot of focus in the past few weeks on high street music retail. That will continue – we must do all we can to serve music fans who love CDs and vinyl," said the BPI chief executive, Geoff Taylor.
"But as well as great music stores, Britain is blessed with a world-beating array of digital music services, which fans rate very highly for ease of use and value for money. And this is just the beginning."
The report noted the rise of streaming services such as Spotify, Napster and last.fm in the UK. The streaming market is now worth more than £49m annually to British record labels, accounting for 15.2% of digital income, the BPI said.
The Swedish music player Spotify led the way in the streaming market, with more than 20 million global users including 5 million paying subscribers. Three songs from Halifax-born singer Ed Sheeran featured in Spotify's top 20 most-played tracks of 2012, which was topped by Gotye's Somebody that I Used to Know.
The BPI said UK music fans streamed more than 3.7bn tracks in 2012, bought 30.5m digital albums and 183.3m digital singles – a rise that helped online music revenue outstrip sales of traditional CDs and records for the first time last year.
"The change has been seismic. And it continues," said Taylor. "Market growth and digital innovation are dynamically intertwined, meaning the next 10 years should be equally as game changing and thrilling, as we look forward to the impact of 4G-connected TVs and in-car streaming on the horizon."
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