December surge helps UK to defy global trend: sales were up in 2003, but the price of music went down, squeezing margins in the process. Music Week highlights sales trends, as well as the top record companies and their artists.(The market)

Sniffing out a bargain has become something of a national obsession for the UK population. And, with music discounting now more rife than ever across the High Street, they capitalised in full in 2003 to snap up album releases in record numbers.

A little under 159.3m albums were bought over the counter during the 12 months, more than 10m units above 2002's level, to lift overall album sales on the year by a global trend-defying 6.8%.

While that came at the expense of profit and margins, it was difficult to argue against the fact that if albums go out at prices seemingly fair to the consumer they are more than happy to pay for them.

They have ...