Towards a music streaming economy – Scandinavia part 1

It’s no accident that Spotify was launched in Sweden during the culmination of the The Pirate Bay lawsuit in 2008. Spotify was promoted as the legal alternative to P2P files haring and the Swedish music consumers were the perfect test market for such a Freemium music service. Sweden’s neighbouring country Norway was in a similar position: wealthy inhabitants, a high penetration of broadband Internet access and a passion for music. Therefore, the Swedish digital entertainment company Aspiro launched the music streaming provider WiMP (the later Tidal) in cooperation with the Norwegian telecommunication company Telenor and music retailer Platekompaniet in Norway in February 2010. Two months later WiMP also started in Denmark as the first music streaming service for PC, Mac and Android mobile.[1] However, in December 2009, the Danish telco TDC had added an unlimited streaming option to its music download service TDC Play (now YouSee Musik) in cooperation with tech company 24-7 Entertainment.[2] Thus, all three Scandinavian countries were pioneers in establishing a music streaming economy. The fourth Scandinavia country, Finland, lagged behind for some years, but in 2017 the Finnish sound recording market was as streaming-lined as its Scandinavian neighbours.

 

Figure 1: The global phonographic market in 2017 by digital market shares

Source: After IFPI Global Music Report 2018.

 

A series of blog entries tells the story of how the Scandinavian countries have become the forerunners of the music streaming economy and highlights the background of this development. In this blog post a comparative analysis of market figures for all Scandinavian countries are presented.

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The US recorded music market in a long-term perspective, 1990-2016

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently published the shipment figures for recorded music in the US for 2016. The statistics highlight a tremendous shift from selling music (CDs and downloads) to accessing music (by streaming services). In the US, music consumers paid for the first time more for music access by ad-supported and paid streaming services (US$ 3.9bn) than for CDs, music downloads and ringtones (US$ 3.5bn).

 

Figure 1: Selling and accessing music in the US, 1990-2016

Source: RIAA Year-End Industry Shipment and Revenue Statistics, reports 1990-2016

 

Thus, the US turned into a music streaming economy last year. It was a long way from a pure physical recorded music market in the 1990s to a yet digitized and music streaming driven market. The following blog entry identifies different periods of the US phonographic market and explains the driving forces of the change.

The Economics of Music Streaming: Spotify

2016 is the pivotal year for the music streaming industry. After years of growth, we can expect a market consolation for the new few months with mergers, acquisitions and insolvencies. Thus, the question arises which music streaming services will survive that consolidation process. I try to assess who will be the winners and losers by analysing the financials of several music streaming companies. In the first part of this series I examine the global market leader in the music streaming market, the Swedish music streaming company Spotify.

The Music Streaming Market Revisited, 2011-2015

Last year, I posted an analysis of the international music streaming for 2014 based on IFPI numbers. Since then the global streaming market was highly dynamic and therefore I updated my analysis and included also earlier data. In 2015 the global streaming revenue (subscriptions and ad-supported streaming revenue) increased by 42.5 per cent (IFPI 2016: 17) and had a volume of US $2.89bn. The music streaming market is almost as big as the music download market (US $2.97bn) (IFPI 2016: 49). Music streaming, therefore, accounts for 42 per cent of the global recorded music market. However, the market share of music streaming differs between countries. Whereas in Sweden the music streaming market share is 66.5 per cent of the overall recorded music market, in Germany just 11.4 per cent of the recorded music revenue comes from music streaming sources. And Japan, the second largest recorded music market in world, lags behind with meagre 4.6 per cent. In the following, please read an analysis of the international music streaming for the time-span from 2011-2015.

Animation of the international music streaming markets, 2011-2015

Is Streaming the Next Big Thing? – What Consumers Want

The question if streaming is the next big thing for the music industry will be eventually answered by the music consumers. Several studies were conducted in past few years – most of them commissioned by music industry bodies – to assess the future potential of music streaming. It is essential for music streaming services and the copyright holders (labels and music publishers) if consumers are aware of streaming services, if they are using them frequently and if they are prepared to convert from Freemium to subscription models. Therefore the results of the studies are important indicators for the future development of the music industry. Although they provide different and even contradictory results – due to a different methodology – they help us nevertheless to understand music consumption behaviour in the digital age. In the following I would like to review some of the studies published in the past three years.

Is Streaming the Next Big Thing? – An International Market Analysis

After years of recession optimism is back in the phonographic industry. In the current Recording Industry in Numbers by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI 2013) the first but small increase of 0.9 percent in global recorded music sales were reported since 1999.The decreases in CD sales and in other physical formats could be compensated by increases in digital music sales. The revenue streams of music streaming services seem to play a crucial role in the recovery. Spotify, Deezer & Co. report annually growing number of users, which makes streaming the fastest growing segment in the phonographic market.

In a series of blog posts entitled “Is Streaming the ‘Next Big Thing’?” I would like to highlight the boom of music streaming services and their business models. But I also ask whether and how labels and publishers as well as artists benefit from the growing streaming music market. In part 1 the development of the digital music market in different countries with special regard to the music streaming market is analysed in detail.