Reports: revenue

Nearly two decades into the streaming era, established subscription markets like the US are approaching saturation. While growth pockets for standard subscriptions remain, the next stage is about raising average revenue per user through both price increases and user segmentation.

Still recovering from post-pandemic aftershocks, the music creator economy now faces unprecedented disruption from generative AI. More people are creating than ever before (both as creators and consumers) and sounds, services, and software revenue is growing well (the latter boosted by generative AI).

Audio platforms traditionally monetise through advertising and, to a lesser degree, listener subscriptions. However, with the rise of the creator economy and more creators entering the podcast space, platforms must bulk up their offerings for creator monetisation as well.

While exclusive content deals with celebrity names signposted the audio strategy of many of the market’s big players, audience platforms are already recognising the growing importance of independent audio creators as the market develops and expands.

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 methodology statement.

Sports as a product is feeling the squeeze of the peak attention economy. Sports fans in the traditional sense are ageing, and appealing to a younger digitally-native audience is a fundamental issue that rights holders can no longer ignore. Sports rights holders have realised the importance of their virtual (gaming) counterparts, acknowledging that they are taking much of the attention of a large proportion of their fanbases, but also nurturing expected future fans who do not interact with the real-life version of sports.

Tencent, currently the fifth most valuable public company in the world, saw income from ‘other gains’ increase in Q4 2017 by 800% on Q4 2016 figures, going $149.6 million to $1.2 billion. These other gains comprised one-off gains from IPOs, tax rebates and investment subsidies.

Following the release of its fourth quarter earnings, Tencent is the first Chinese company to achieve a market capitalisation of over $500 billion, displacing Facebook as fifth most valuable global company. This growth has been highlighted by the 54% year-on-year (YoY) increase in revenue from $22.