While we’ll have to wait for the IFPI’s official numbers later this year, there’s a consensus that the music industry ended 2016 with around 100 million people around the world paying for music subscriptions.
Now Midia Research, which has just upgraded that estimate to 106.3 million, has predicted that the industry could add 44.3 million more in 2017.
“A combination of enough growth being left in the market and the continued success of pricing discounts should see subscriber numbers grow at a slightly faster rate in 2017 than they did in 2016, hitting 146.6 million,” explained the company in a blog post promoting its latest report.
“By 2018, subscriber growth will begin to lessen and by 2019 we’ll be in market maturation phase. Around 2/3 of the readily addressable opportunity for 9.99 has already been tapped and this remainder is what will drive the 2017 growth. New tactics will be required for the rest of the cycle.”
Midia has made its suggestions for what those tactics should be.
“By using super low prices (e.g. 2.99; 3.99) to launch laser focused niche apps aimed at specific demographics and genres. This can be done both by standalone specialists (e.g. the Overflow, FreqsTV) and by the big incumbents taking a leaf out of Facebook’s app strategy and creating standalone, unbundled apps…”
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