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Now That's What I Call Music albums may seem like a slightly dated music format, but sales of compilation albums are on the rise, despite the ease of accessing chart hits through downloads and streaming services online.

Compilation album sales had been on the decline since 2004 (the year which welcomed iTunes to the market), but in 2012, sales jumped by a million sales year on year - with 20.6m compilation albums sold last year, compared to 19.2m sales in 2011.

The Guardian have reported the new sales figures, the first increase in a decade, ahead of the BPI publishing full numbers next month.

The report also claims that compilations are now the fastest growing part of the digital albums market - growing from 0.4% of sales in 2006 to 23.5% of the online market in 2012. Furthermore, Now That's What I Call Music is still the industry's biggest title after 30 years on shelves - both physical and digital.

30 years on and the Now compilations are still selling in huge numbers

The newly revealed numbers come as a surprise - considering the options available to music consumers. In recent years, iTunes has dominated the sales market, which the rise of services such as Spotify and Deezer have allowed music fans to access music streams for free online.

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