Amazon took a quarter of music and games sales in run-up to Christmas
New data has shown that Amazon took one in every four pounds spent on physical music, games and video in the UK during the run-up to Christmas.
The latest data from Kantar Worldpanel for the 12 weeks ending 21 December shows that the online retail giant was boosted by another rise in online shopping which accounted for a record 39% of all transactions in the sector.
Fiona Keenan, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “Amazon performed exceptionally well this Christmas and for the first time ever captured more than a quarter of Britain’s physical entertainment market. Its performance was aided by the increasing popularity of online retail which accounted for 39% of entertainment spending in the run up to Christmas – its highest ever level – growing by 3% year-on-year.”
She added: “While consumers’ average online spend increased by 6% this Christmas, they still spent less than they did when shopping in physical stores as retailers struggled to get them to shop impulsively online. A third of in-store purchases were bought purely on impulse, creating an additional £119 million for the industry, but when shopping online this proportion halved. Retailers need to identify ways to encourage impulse purchasing in an online environment, particularly as so much of our spend goes through this channel.”
Kantar’s data shows that supermarkets fared less well during the period. The exception was Tesco, which took 14.7% of sales and maintained its position as the second largest retailer of physical entertainment products. Tesco was particularly successful with the big titles, taking 28% of Frozen sales and 21% of FIFA 15 – the two top gifts in video and games respectively. The other grocers lost share year-on-year with Morrisons slipping back by 0.4 percentage points to 2.1% and Sainsbury’s down 0.6 percentage points to 6%. Asda fared worst with its market share falling from 12.9% to 9.5% of sales.
Sector specialist HMV claimed 13.9% of entertainment sales in the final quarter of 2014, up from 13.4% a year before, making it the UK’s third largest retailer behind Amazon and Tesco. Meanwhile, Argos increased its market share to 4.4%, performing particularly well in the sales of new PS4 and Xbox One games.
It was also a stronger Christmas for smaller retailers and independents which increased their share of the market from 9.6% to 11.4%.
