Invitations went out to journalists yesterday for the launch of the IFPI’s annual Global Music Report on 24 March. That’s the day we’ll be getting the official figures on the growth of the global recorded-music industry in 2019, as well as country-by-country breakdowns. But with individual national bodies releasing their figures already, we have a good sense that the IFPI study is going to show strong growth.
Yesterday, for example, two of the ‘big four’ music markets released new numbers: Japan and Germany. Japanese industry body the RIAJ revealed that streaming revenues grew by 33% to ¥46.53bn in 2019, with its breakdown noting a 30% increase in the value of subscription audio streaming (to ¥40.42bn) accounting for the bulk of those revenues.
MBW has been crunching the numbers, and suggests that streaming was 19.3% of Japan’s recorded music revenues last year, up from 14.6% in 2018. However, it also suggests that once physical is factored in, the overall market may have experienced a ‘slight dip’ in 2019 – something we’ll wait for official confirmation on in the IFPI report.
How about Germany, which is the other streaming later-adopter in the big four alongside Japan? Figures from industry body the BVMI show that its recorded music market grew by 8.2% in 2019 to €1.62bn (around $1.82bn) – these are retail revenues, compared to the trade figures of the RIAJ. Audio streaming now accounts for 55.1% of those total revenues, and this category grew by 27% last year to €894m.
Roll on 24 March when we’ll find out how all these figures contributed to the global picture for 2019 (and also will have more clarity in terms of how retail figures relate to trade revenues, given the different nature of the data published by various countries.)
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