Mark Mulligan

Mark Mulligan is a music analyst and the founder at MIDiA Research. He is a long-term tech analyst and a leading digital thinker with more than 20 years of experience, working with leading global music, entertainment, and tech companies. At MIDiA, Mark focuses on the streaming and creator economies, as well as music business trends and market metrics such as forecasts and market shares.

Cover image for Fender

Fender
The journey from a vintage icon to a driver of modern music making

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

30 Sep 2021

Music

Fender has long been renowned for one thing more than anything else – guitars. Since releasing its first guitars in the early 1950s, Fender has become an icon in music. For a long time, their historical legacy was enough to ride on, as an established collector market would drive sales of vintage recreations and custom shop models.

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Music creator tools forecast
Moving towards a hybrid future

Mark Mulligan

24 Sep 2021

Creators Apple Spotify

Once upon a time, music software and hardware were distinct market segments, but now they are increasingly fusing into a network of hybrid creator tools ecosystems. Standalone hardware still has a vibrant future, but the real momentum lies with software, sounds, services and the hardware that supports them.

UMG’s buoyant stock debut is a new chapter for the music business

Mark Mulligan

22 Sep 2021

Music Business Strategy

Universal Music Group (UMG) had an extremely positive first day of trading as a standalone entity, with shares at one stage trading 35% up from their reference point and making the market cap leap to $55 billion , while former-parent, Vivendi, saw a drop of two thirds in its value.

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‘Middle class’ artists need niche, not scale

Mark Mulligan

17 Sep 2021

Music Business Strategy

Streaming continues to grow strongly, as evidenced by the 28% growth reported by the RIAA for H1 2021 in the US . Everything looks great for the build-up to the impeding Universal Music Group (UMG) IPO.

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The oncoming fandom crisis

Mark Mulligan

10 Sep 2021

music fans Music fandom Fandom

The Chinese authorities’ crackdown on fandom represents the first major growing pain for the global fandom economy. Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) will likely be the bellwether of this shift, with two thirds of its revenues coming from non-music (i.

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Creator hubs
Creator tools’ next growth driver

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

7 Sep 2021

Creators Spotify Artists

The emerging competitive dynamic between insurgents and incumbents is the catalyst for an unprecedented period of innovation in the music creator tools space. However, because this dynamic is underpinned by substantial institutional investment and strong market growth, the second order effect is the further fragmentation of an already congested and...

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Splice

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

7 Sep 2021

Music Justin Bieber AI

Founded in 2013, US-based music creator platform Splice has become one of themost recognisable brands in the creator tools space. Splice took the subscription access model for music sounds and samples to a global scale, both riding anddriving the creative trend towards sounds-based music production.

Kanye just obliterated the creative full stop

Mark Mulligan

3 Sep 2021

Kanye West music product strategy creator tools

Kanye West knows how to stir things up, not least in making us rethink what music is and nudging us away from considering it as linear and static. First there was his announcement that Life of Pablo was a “ living, breathing, changing creative expression ”, and now there is his Donda Stem Player...

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Can Spotify break out of its lane?

Mark Mulligan

13 Aug 2021

Spotify TikTok YouTube

After years of relative stability, music consumption is shifting, with the DSP streaming model beginning to lose some ground as illustrated by the major labels growing streaming revenue by 33% in Q2 2021 while Spotify was up by just 23%.

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Spotify Q2 2021 earnings
Slowdown arrives

Mark Mulligan

11 Aug 2021

Streaming Music Subscriptions Spotify

The growth headwinds that appeared in Q1 2021 manifested in a pronounced user growth slowdown in Q2, with ad-supported users hit hardest. Spotify has been through lean growth periods before, but what is different this time is that streaming’s new players are growing at pace.

MIDiA is recruiting for a Business Development Manager

Mark Mulligan

9 Aug 2021

Video Media and Marketing

Building on our continued success in 2021, MIDiA is recruiting for a new Business Development Manager. The successful candidate in this role will lead MIDiA’s commercial activities across video and games, building on our existing client base of leading global companies in these sectors.

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The record labels are weaning themselves off their Spotify dependency

Mark Mulligan

6 Aug 2021

Spotify Streaming TikTok

The major labels had a spectacular streaming quarter, registering 33% growth on Q2 2020 to reach $3.1 billion. Spotify had a less impressive quarter, growing revenues by just 23%. After being the industry’s byword for streaming for so long, Spotify’s dominant role is beginning to lessen.

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Labels are going to become more like VCs than they probably want to be

Mark Mulligan

30 Jul 2021

Record labels Labels artist accelerators

When you are in the midst of change it can be hard to actually see it. Right now, the music business is undergoing a consumption paradigm shift that is changing the culture and business of music. Streaming may be well established and maturing in many markets but the market impact will continue to ac...

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Addressable creator markets
An opportunity with many layers

Mark Mulligan

29 Jul 2021

Apple Apple Artists

The music creator tools space is undergoing a change that is simultaneously renaissance and transformation. The creator culture boom has driven an unprecedented degree of investment and investor interest. However, because the music creator tools space is a collection of diverse products and services, an underlying challenge has been how to identify...

Spotify and music listening 10 years from now

Mark Mulligan

23 Jul 2021

Streaming music listening Spotify

July marks ten years since Spotify’s US launch. Although the tendency among some is to consider this ‘year zero’ for streaming (thus ignoring everything that had happened in prior years both within and outside of the US) it does present a useful opportunity to reflect on what the next decade m...

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Music consumer survey Q1 2021
YouTube extends its reach

Mark Mulligan

20 Jul 2021

Spotify YouTube Deezer

The data in this report is taken from MIDiA’s Q1 2021 consumer survey. The full data from this survey and all the preceding quarterly surveys are available, along with data visualisation tools and dynamic segmentation, on MIDiA Fuse. The countries covered in this report are US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Brazil, South Korea.

Global music subscriber market shares Q1 2021

Mark Mulligan

9 Jul 2021

music subscribers subscriber market shares Streaming

The music industry’s growing obsession with declining ARPU will continue to colour the outlook for the global streaming market in revenue terms, but the positive driver of this equation is the rapid growth of music subscribers.

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Emerging markets may be about to change the superstar business

Mark Mulligan

2 Jul 2021

emerging markets anglo repertoire Music

The traditional recorded music business was all about selling units, which naturally meant that the most important markets were not the most populous but the wealthiest. Throughout the late 20thcentury this created a ‘global’ market that was dominated by North America, Europe and a few others.

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MIDiA Research 2021 – 2028 global music forecasts
ARPU growth finally delivers

Mark Mulligan

30 Jun 2021

revenue Global Music

This report presents the key figures, trends and drivers of MIDiA’s music forecast model. The figures presented in this report are both retail and label trade values and are in billions of US dollars unless otherwise stated. An Excel file posted alongside this report provides complete country level data, including DSP market shares and a detailed...

How Bandcamp could really fix the music business

Mark Mulligan

25 Jun 2021

Independent artists Artists Streaming Music

“A thought: has streaming become the place to address consumers and the likes of Bandcamp the places to engage fans? i.e., fans and fandom inherently matter less on streaming because it/they are a minority.

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