We’ve written separately about the IFPI’s Digital Music Report, which has just been released. But if you just want the hard numbers, here’s some of the main ones.OVERALL FIGURES– More than 1.4 billion legal single-tracks were downloaded in 2008, up 24% from 2007. The top-selling digital single was Lil Wayne’s Lollipop with 9.1 million sales.- Digital album sales grew by 36% in 2008.- Digital music generated $3.7 billion of trade revenues in 2008 – up 25% year-on-year.- Digital now accounts for 20% of all recorded music sales, up from 15% in 2007. By contrast, the games industry generates 35% of its revenues digitally (but newspapers, films and magazines are way behind with 4%, 4% and 1% respectively)- The IFPI estimates that more than 40 billion songs were downloaded illegally in 2008 – that’s 95% of total music downloadsGLOBAL BREAKDOWN– The US accounts for around 50% of the entire global digital music market value, with 1.1 billion single-track downloads in 2008 (up 27% from 2007) and 66 million digital album sales (up 32%) – these are Nielsen SoundScan figures. Digital was 39% of the overall music market, revenue-wise.- Japan sold 140 million mobile singles in 2008, up 26% on 2007. Digital was 19% of the overall music market.- The UK sold 110 million single-track downloads in 2008 – up 42% – while digital album sales rose 65% to 10.3 million. Digital was 16% of the overall music market.- France sold 14.5 million online single-track downloads in 2008 – up 20% year-on-year – and 1.4 million digital albums, up 27%. Digital was 12% of the overall music market. However, the number of album releases by new artists fell by 16% in the first half of 2008.- Germany sold 37.4 million online single-track downloads in 2008 – up 22%. It sold 4.4 million digital albums, up 57% from 2007. Digital was 9% of the overall music market.- An estimated 1.6 billion songs were downloaded illegally in Spain in 2008, compared to just two million legal downloads. That means 99.9% of downloads in Spain are unauthorised. Digital is 10% of the market.OTHER STATS– US broadband users spent an average of $12.50 on music in 2008, compared to $7.80 for UK broadband users, and a mere $0.60 for Spanish broadband users.- There are 2.5 million hip-hop artists on MySpace, compared to 2.4 million rap artists (yeah, we know..), 1.8 million rock acts, and 1.6 million R&B artists.
Music Ally’s next Learn Live webinar will help you understand what’s required for artists to thrive in new international markets!