Reports: consumer behavior

Consumers adopt technology in predictable ways, and even though technology adoption is far faster now than it has ever been, it continues to follow traditional growth patterns. Mobile app stores are enabling technologies to reach global scale and mainstream adoption within their addressable audiences at a far faster rate than ever before.

The Brazilian digital music market is still in a formative stage in contrast to developed markets such as the USA and the UK. Apple’s iTunes store only started to operate in Brazil in 2012 and music streaming service Spotify only began its Brazilian activities in 2014.

Total revenue growth in streaming heartland markets in 2012 and 2013 painted a strong picture for the streaming era. But by 2014 much of that growth had transformed into decline. Neither trends provide definitive evidence for the case for streaming but both point to the wafer thin margins between growth and decline in the music market.

During the last decade Brazil underwent great economic advances, removing a considerable part of its population from poverty, placing them into the consumer market. Now, these Brazilian citizens aspire to smartphones and tablets in order to access digital content and services.

Consumer music behaviour, tastes and attitudes vary dramatically. The ability to delineate discrete segments is crucial for targeting music services and for artist marketing. Over the last half decade the music industry has come to understand importance of consumer segmentation in understanding music fans and buyers.

The music industry has long placed supreme importance on the holiday season and it is a habit that dies hard. Release schedules are still geared towards the period and seasonal sales expectations, or least hopes, remain high. Yet gifting has been one of the biggest victims of the digital transition with digital gifting failing to capture the imagination of mainstream consumers.

YouTube is the globe’s leading digital music service but it delivers comparatively little back to the music industry in direct revenue. Even the one billion dollars paid out in Content ID revenues only represents $0.14 for each of its one billion users per year, since the launch of Content ID in 2007.