Wednesday, May 6, 2015 9:58am ET by  
Comments (0)

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1D, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran help British acts make waves in U.S. music market

UK labels body BPI has conducted new research that shows One Direction, Sam Smith and singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran helped British artists expand their share of the U.S. albums market last year. 

Data was collected from Nielsen Music and it allowed the BPI to report that almost one in eight (12.2%) of all albums sold in the U.S. during 2014 were by British artists, which is a figure up from one in ten (10.4%) the year before.

Billboard explains that 2014 was the fourth consecutive year that Brits' share of the albums market in the U.S. exceeded 10%, with Sam Smith’s debut 'In The Lonely Hour' being last year’s best-selling album by a British artist in the U.S., followed by One Direction’s latest offering, 'Four'.

Nielsen also confirmed that Smith's 'In The Lonely Hour' was 2014's third best-selling record in the U.S. overall, with 1D’s latest and fourth consecutive Billboard 200 chart-topper at No. 9 in the year-end charts.

Smith's 'Stay With Me' was the most streamed song from a British act, attracting more than 147 million streams in America, while One Direction were the most-streamed U.K. act in America with more than 533 million plays in total. 1D were closely followed by Ed Sheeran, who racked up 427 million streams.

Billboard added that "collectively, Sam Smith, One Direction, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran accounted for more than a fifth (21 per cent) of all U.K. albums sold in the U.S., with cumulative sales across all four titles totalling over 3.5 million."

Follow us: @Pressparty on Twitter Pressparty on Facebook.

Watch Simon Cowell discussing Zayn Malik's departure from One Direction here: