Research firm KPMG’s India division has published its annual Media and Entertainment Report for 2019, which describes India’s digital future as a “mass of niches”. It’s very good for rooting what’s happening around music-streaming in the context of the wider digital-media ecosystem, as well as the Indian economy. There are some good music specifics though.
“The Indian music industry is expected to grow at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 15.8 per cent over FY19-FY24. The key catalyst for this growth is likely to be audio streaming, which is expected to grow at around 5 per cent higher than growth of the overall music industry,” being one claim made by the report, which sees advertising revenues as a key driver for streaming.
It also claims that the number of monthly active audio-streaming users has grown from 110 million in 2018 to 165 million in 2019, and claims that while paid subscriptions will only generate 9.1% of the Indian music industry’s streaming revenues in 2019, that will grow to 31% by 2024.
The report also tracks some changes due to the “democratisation of wireless data usage” in India – cheaper data tariffs for mobile devices, which has opened up services like audio-streaming for a much wider audience in India beyond the main cities.
One impact: consumption of Bollywood music has fallen from around 65-70% of music streams in India to just over 50% in 2019. But the share of international music has “also decreased from late 2016 due to increased accessibility of streaming platforms in tier II and tier III cities” – it’s regional (non-Bollywood) music that’s capitalising, growing to a 32% share of streams in 2019 according to KPMG.
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