26 April 2017, LONDON - New figures on the recorded music market from the IFPI have highlighted the transformational role of digital services and retailers in helping reinvent the music market after 15 years in which it declined by nearly 40%.
The figures show the worldwide music market grew by 5.9% in 2016, its best result in 20 years, most notably driven by the growth of subscription streaming services. The IFPI says there are now 112 million users of such services worldwide. In 2016 revenues from the sector grew by 60.4%.
Kim Bayley, CEO of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said, “The IFPI numbers amount to a ringing endorsement of the ability of digital services and retailers to broaden the market for music and generate more revenue for artists and songwriters. It is significant that the two fastest growing sectors of the music industry – streaming and vinyl records – are both the result of the innovation, market insight and investment of retailers and digital services.
“Investment from services like Spotify, Amazon Prime, Deezer and Google Play has effectively thrown a lifeline to the music industry. The key to maintaining that investment has to be to ensure an equitable split of the fruits of that success between the digital services, the artists and songwriters and the labels and music publishers who represent them.”
ENDS