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Frozen beats FIFA 15 and Call of Duty as UK's best-selling entertainment product of 2014

But video games beat Ed Sheeran, at least.

Disney's all-conquering animated movie Frozen was the UK's best-selling entertainment product of 2014.

The DVD and Blu-ray shifted an incredible four million copies last year, according to figures released by the Entertainment Retailers Association today.

That's 50 per cent more than the UK's best-selling video game, FIFA 15, which, according to the ERA, sold 2.6m copies.

In third place was Activision's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which shifted 1.84m copies. Grand Theft Auto 5 was sixth with 1.34m. Other video games in the top 20 include Destiny with 937,235 sales and Watch Dogs with 808,799.

Video games did best in 2014, with sales up 7.5 per cent to £2.45bn. That's more than video (down 1.4 per cent to £2.18bn) and music (down 1.6 per cent to £1.03bn). The growth was fuelled by mobile and online gaming as well as the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the ERA said.

Interestingly, digital now accounts for 61 per cent of the overall gaming market (here's looking at you, Clash of Clans gems). IHS estimates digital revenue increased 18.8 per cent to £1.5bn in 2014. While the PS4 and Xbox One are enjoying record-breaking sales, the overall console software market declined by 2.3 per cent.

Here's the top 20 by sales units (it's worth noting that the ERA's sales figures for video games and home video do not include downloads, while the figures for music do).

  1. Frozen - 4,012,676
  2. FIFA 15 - 2,663,296
  3. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - 1,837,025
  4. X, Ed Sheeran - 1,753,226
  5. The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug - 1,550,635
  6. Grand Theft Auto 5 - 1,341,472
  7. In The Lonely Hour, Sam Smith - 1,296,295
  8. The Lego Movie - 1,092,486
  9. The Hunger Games - Catching Fire - 1,078,911
  10. Mrs Brown's Boys: D'movie - 1,056,960
  11. Now That's What I Call Music 89 - 999,201
  12. Guardians of the Galaxy - 992,818
  13. Frozen, Original Soundtrack - 974,067
  14. Destiny - 937,235
  15. Gravity - 915,355
  16. The Wolf of Wall Street - 888,621
  17. The Inbetweeners Movie 2 - 849,859
  18. Watch Dogs - 808,799
  19. Now That's What I Call Music 88 - 728,683
  20. Wanted On Voyage, George Ezra - 704,069