Reports: Streaming Music

In a few short years streaming has gone from being an interesting sideshow to the most important component of the recorded music market in terms of impact, innovation and disruption, though not in revenue terms. Indeed streaming still only represents 16% of all recorded music revenue but its growth is directly impacting virtually every other aspect...

While the home hi-fi market was fading into irrelevance Sonos quietly set about reimagining the whole concept of in-home audio. Now connected home audio is coming of age, with Sonos the dominant player in the multi-room audio segment. Consequently incumbents of all shapes and sizes are rising themselves from their slumbers and entering the market i...

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.

The world’s largest music market continues to set the pace for digital music adoption among the large music markets. Tech savvy young Americans are increasingly embracing consumption over ownership models and in turn are helping change the revenue landscape.

The global digital music industry may only be growing steadily (5% in 2013) but beneath the headline number is a richly varied picture of different services, diverse regional growth rates and competing business models. To better understand this marketplace, MIDiA Research conducted a Global Music Services Tracker.

Streaming has arrived and is here to stay, that much is clear. What is not is how it will impact existing music revenue streams. Though neither a business model nor a product, streaming is the lens through which the irresistible force of the shift from ownership to access is best understood.

Natives and Immigrants demarcate the digital world. While Digital Immigrants bear the baggage of their analogue era past, Digital Natives have only ever know ubiquitous connectivity and content availability. Consequently the digital music behaviour of Digital Natives evolves at a dramatic pace and markedly over indexes against the Digital Immigrant...