The fate of the CD – an international CD-market analysis

In March 2010, my first blog post in the music business research blog was entitled “The CD is Dead! Long Life the Music Download?” – with a question mark. The prophecy has become partly true. In some markets, e.g. in Sweden, the CD is only a by-product such as vinyl with a combined market share 12.4 percent (IFPI 2016: 92). In other countries, e.g. Germany, the CD is still economically relevant. Physical sales in Germany accounted for 60.0 percent in 2015 – with 83.6m CD units and 7.6m other physical units sold (ibid: 81). However, the CD is on the way to insignificance and will end up as a nostalgic collectors’ item. The following economic analysis of the international CD market shed light into the dynamics of different markets and explains, why some markets are still driven by CD sales.

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International Journal of Music Business Research – April 2015, vol. 4, no. 1

The April issue of the International Journal of Music Business Business Research is now available online. This special issue – edited by Martin Lücke (professor at Macromedia University of Applied Sciences Berlin) and Carsten Winter (professor at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media – focuses on the German music economy. In the first article, Helmut Scherer & Carsten Winter (both full professors at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media) discuss success factors for music-based crowdfunding in Germany. Ronny Gey (University Jena), Frank Schumacher, Stephan Klingner (both University Leipzig) and Bettina Schasse de Araujo (Institute for Applied Informatics) highlight the conflict between artistic and economic rationales in a shrinking recorded music market that negatively affects creative and innovative processes in the music industry. In the third article David-Emil Wickström (Pop Academy Baden-Württemberg), Martin Lücke and Anita Jóri (both Macromedia University of Applied Sciences Berlin) discuss the higher education of musicians and music industry workers within the field of Popular Music in Germany.

Volume 4, no 1, April 2015 – special issue on the German Music Economy

Editorial by Martin Lücke & Carsten Winter, pp. 4-8

Helmut Scherer & Carsten Winter: Success factors for music-based crowdfunding as a new means of financing music projects, pp. 9-25

Ronny Gey, Frank Schumacher, Stephan Klingner & Bettina Schasse de Araujo: Buried by administration: How the music industry loses its creativity. An empirical study of German music labels and publishers, pp. 26-54

David-Emil Wickström, Martin Lücke & Anita Jóri: The higher education of musicians and music industry workers in Germany, pp. 55-88

The Recorded Music Market in Germany, 2003-2014

The recently published figures of the recorded music market in Germany show a picture of stability. Compared to 2013, the recorded music sales increased by 1.8 percent to EUR 1.48bn as reported by IFPI Germany (Bundesverband Musikindustrie – BVMI) in the latest Yearbook on the Recorded Music Industry in Germany (Jahrbuch zur Musikindustrie in Deutschland). The still fast growing revenues from the music streaming business are the main reason for the modest overall sales growth of 1.8 percent. The revenues from music subscription rose by 77.0 percent to EUR 108.0m compared to 2013. In the same period, however, long-play download sales (mainly digital album sales) declined for the first time – by1.4 percent to EUR 145.0m. The single track download sales again decreased – after a sales decline of 4.6 percent in 2013 – by 7.4 percent to EUR 100.0m. The physical music sales are still declining by 1.7 percent in 2014. Nevertheless physical sales are still dominant on the German recorded music market with share of 74.9 percent (without revenues from neighbouring rights collecting society GVL and from synchronisation). The CD is still the most important audio format of the recorded music market in Germany with sales of EUR 985.0m and a market share of 66.7 percent.

The details of the development of the recorded music market in Germany from 2003-2014 are highlighted in the following analysis.

The Recorded Music Market in Germany, 2003-2013

The German Federal Association of Music Industry (Bundesverband Musikindustrie – BVMI) reported a slight growth of recorded music sales by 1.2 percent for 2013. The main reason for the first increase of music sales in the past 15 years were growing digital music sales by 11.7 percent from 2012 to 2013. At the same time, the physical music sales moderately declined by 1.5 percent to EUR 1.12bn. Whereas CD sales fell by 1.3 percent to EUR 1.0bn, the sales of vinyl records grew heavily by 47.2 percent to EUR 29.0m in 2013. Since the CD has still a market share of 69.8 percent, one should be cautious to speak about a turnaround of the German recorded music market. A stabilization of the physical music sales is unrealistic and the increase of digital music sales has to over-compensate the loss in the physical market segment. Although the revenue from ad-supported and subscription music services increased by 91.2 percent to EUR 68.0m, the single-track download sales fell for the first time by 4.4 percent to EUR 104.0m in 2013, which makes a turnaround scenario highly questionable.

In the following, the future development of the German recorded music market will be analysed based on the BVMI report as well as on historic empirical data.