SPEAKS VOLUMES

Soaring smart speaker sales helped give UK record labels a near £350million boost last year.

Figures from industry body the British Phonographic Industry showed the amount record companies got from subscription services, including Spotify and Amazon Music, jumped almost 45% in 2017. The BPI says the rise was fuelled by voice-activated gadgets such as Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home.

Little Mix, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith helped overall sales for UK music firms rise 10.6% to £839m, with vinyl LP sales up 24% to £55m.