Of this £316.5m total, £146m was from digital album sales, with 21.0m units sold last year - or one in six of all albums sold in the UK. This represents a 23% annual increase in spending on digital albums.

The figures come from the BPI's new Annual Yearbook, which also revealed Adele's 21 has now taken the crown of the UK's biggest selling digital album, having passed Lady GaGa's The Fame last month.

In total, more than 56.5m digital albums ...