Mark Mulligan
Mark is MIDiA’s founder and part of the music analyst team. He covers everything from market shares, to forecasts, to business models and product strategy across the music value chain.
Fender
The journey from a vintage icon to a driver of modern music making
Music creator tools forecast
Moving towards a hybrid future
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...
UMG’s buoyant stock debut is a new chapter for the music business
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...
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‘Middle class’ artists need niche, not scale
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
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...
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Creator hubs
Creator tools’ next growth driver
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...
Splice
Kanye just obliterated the creative full stop
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...
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Can Spotify break out of its lane?
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...
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Spotify Q2 2021 earnings
Slowdown arrives
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...
MIDiA is recruiting for a Business Development Manager
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,...
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The record labels are weaning themselves off their Spotify dependency
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...
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Labels are going to become more like VCs than they probably want to be
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...
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Addressable creator markets
An opportunity with many layers
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....
Spotify and music listening 10 years from now
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...
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Music consumer survey Q1 2021
YouTube extends its reach
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...
Global music subscriber market shares Q1 2021
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...
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Emerging markets may be about to change the superstar business
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...
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MIDiA Research 2021 – 2028 global music forecasts
ARPU growth finally delivers
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...