Digital sales pass £1bn for first time Sales of downloaded music, video and games passed the £1bn mark for the first time last year as more British households took advantage of broadband connections and smartphones. Online sales rose 11.4 per cent compared with the previous year to £1.03bn. Video games accounted for more than half the total as buyers were lured by social gaming and multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft. Kim Bayley, director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association, which compiled the figures, said: "Breaching the £1bn barrier is an incredible achievement for the UK's digital entertainment retailers." But the climb failed to compensate for sharper declines in physical sales with CD, DVD and video-game purchases down 17.6 per cent to £3.2bn. In physical sales, video games - dominated by console games - were hardest hit with sales down 26.4 per cent over the year, according to data from the ERA. Analysts said 2012 was a tough year for the video-games sectorwith a shortage of blockbuster releases, noting that some consumers were waiting for the launch of new consoles from Microsoft and Sony, expected this year or next. In digital downloads, video showed the most growth, rising 20.3 per cent to £97.9m, reflecting a wider adoption of devices capable of showing high-quality video. "There are a lot more devices out there now," said Ed Barton, head of digital media analysis at Strategy Analytics. You are much more likely to treat yourself to downloading a movie if you can watch it on a nice tablet or, even better, on a big TV. Digital music sales rose 15.1 per cent over the year to £383.3m, excluding the growth in music streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer. Data from the Official Charts Company released on Wednesday showed that these services were growing in popularity with 3.7bn tracks streamed in the UK during 2012. The top three streamed tracks reached the equivalent of 140 streams for every household in the UK last year. Volumes of UK single sales, topped by Gotye's Somebody that I used to know, broke records for the fifth successive year with total single sales up 6 per cent to 188.6m in 2012. Digital downloads accounted for 99.6 per cent of all single sales. Digital album sales rose 14.8 per cent to 30.5m last year with Emeli Sandé"s Our Version of Events the bestseller. However, physical sales of CD albums fell 19.5 per cent over the year to 69.4m.