A 45% increase in digital sales has helped slow the decline in the UK music market to just 4% in the first half of the year.

New interim trade delivery figures from the IFPI show that of the top five music territories, the UK was the best performer digitally with sales worth $115.8m (£74.52m) already (they stood at $169.5m [£109.02m] at the end of 2007).

Thus, although physical sales slumped 10% – the UK and US markets combined accounted for a 60% loss of physical sales globally – in the same period, the digital growth prevented a total collapse.

Digital sales now account for 16% of the market in the UK, slightly lower than the 20% global average.

IFPI director of market research Gabriela Lopes explains that the UK has performed better than the overall global market, which saw a 12% decline in physical sales in the first half. This equates with the 12% fall over the whole of 2007, indicating the decline in physical sales is pretty stable. “The first half of the year is a pretty good indicator of what will happen over the whole year,” she says.

Combined with the 25% increase in digital sales globally (up significantly from just 15% at end of 2007), the global market has shrunk overall by 5% over the first six months of 2008. But that is actually a decent result in the current economic market because at the end of last year the rate of decline in physical and digital sales combined was 8%.