Piracy once made Spain one of the basket cases of the global music market, but in 2016 the country saw its music sales grow by 1.7% thanks to streaming subscriptions.
That’s a third consecutive year of growth, with industry body Promusicae reporting yesterday that there are now more than one million paying music subscribers in Spain, driving the 61% digital proportion of its €163m sales overall.
Those digital revenues were up 26%, including a 37.4% rise in streaming subscriptions to €62m, and a 24% rise in ad-supported streaming revenues to €25m.
In 2015, according to the IFPI, Spain’s €161.2m of recorded-music revenue made it the 13th biggest music market in the world, and the 16th biggest for digital.
Given where it was a few years ago, when some labels were talking openly about giving up on Spain as a legal music market, the progress of the last three years is welcome indeed.
That said, the 1.7% rise in 2016 is significantly down on the 10% growth in 2015: Promusicae and its label members will be keen to reignite that growth in 2017 rather than see it stall entirely.
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