Streaming revenues grows in importance

CMU Daily reports that streaming music services around the world should generate £696 million for the global music industry this year. The new research by Strategy Analytic predicts an increase of 40% year on year, making it (unsurprisingly) the fastest growing strand of the recorded music market. Download sales are also still increasing according to the Report, and should be up 8.5% this year. Meanwhile, physical product sales continue to drop, down 12%, though overall CDs and such like still account for 61% of music sold Worldwide. The 50/50 physical-to-digital domination switchover may have happened in some territories, but not as yet on a global level - though Strategy Analytics reckons this could happen by 2015. However one worrying trend was that overall spending on recorded music is likely to be down 2.6% this year in the UK, partially blamed on a weakened release schedule. In Germany the German Music Industry Association (BVMI) has reported a 0.2% increase in overall revenue for the half of 2012. The strongest growth was in album downloads, which jumped nearly 35 % year-on-year and online music sales now account for just under 20 % of total revenue in the German market, up from 14.4 % over the same period last year. The BVMI figures do not include revenue from streaming services - apparently streaming revenue accounted for about 2% of the German music market last year. Unsurprisingly, physical CD sales continue to fall (by 5.4 % in the first half of 2012), although CDs still account for 72 % of overall revenue.