If you listen closely to the start of Wizzard’s yuletide standard I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, you’ll hear the kerching of a cash register.

The sound might have been “a winning speck of cynicism in the tinselly facade” of 70s consumerism, according to the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis, but five decades on it has proved prophetic – the song accounts for nearly all of the band’s streams on Spotify.

Research shows that Wizzard top the “Christmas reliance” chart with 97% of their Spotify streams coming from holiday music.

Dark Horse, the SEO company behind the analysis, estimates this is worth about £430,000 to the band, which was formed by Roy Wood in the early 1970s. It is not certain exactly what Wizzard earn because streaming revenues are undisclosed.

“There’s something mildly aggrieving about this song’s annual success overshadowing the rest of Wood’s rich oeuvre,” according to Petridis, the Guardian’s head rock and pop critic. However, in his rundown of Wood’s best tracks, he adds that “equally, writing something that becomes part of the fabric of national life is quite an achievement”.

Andrew Mitchell, the head of digital PR for Dark Horse, said the Wizzard stats were part of a much larger trend toward classic Christmas music dominating charts via streaming platforms.

He said: “In the early 2000s, there were hardly any Christmas songs in the Top 40 of the week that the Christmas No 1 is crowned. That has steadily risen over the years, and now Christmas songs dominate the charts – and usually the same ones each year. Over the past few years, at least half of the Top 40 each Christmas has been the same as the previous year.”

Wizzard’s top 10 tracks on Spotify have amassed 215m streams. I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday alone has 208m streams, which makes up about 97% of that 215m total.

Wood had several musical lives before forming the band. He founded psychedelic rockers The Move and then started Electric Light Orchestra in 1970 with Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan.

The Move formally split in 1972, the same year Wood formed the glam rockers Wizzard.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday from 1973 is Wizzard’s best-known track but they had several other hits, including Ball Park Incident and See My Baby Jive.

This year’s Christmas No 1 was Kylie Minogue with Xmas, which was helped by a viral dance. She saw off competition from Wham!’s Last Christmas, which held the top spot for the past two years.

Also in the race was Lullaby from the charity campaign Together for Palestine. It reached No 5.