New Music Industry Report: Digital Revenues are Now Greater Than Physical

The IFPI, the global record industry trade organization, released figures for 2015 today and some interesting things can be extracted from the report. (All figures in USD.)

• Total recorded music revenue on planet Earth grew by 3.2% in 2015 to an even $15 billion. That’s the best year-over-year percentage growth since 1998.
• North America was up 1.5% while Latin America grew by 11.8%.
• Digital services (streaming and downloads) accounted for 45% of recorded music revenue ($6.7 billion), which is greater than the money that came in from physical sales (CDs, vinyl, tape, etc.). That’s never happened before.
• Digital revenues now account for 19% of all sales on the planet. And about 19 countries get more money from digital than physical.
• Physical sales were down 4.5% while download sales dropped by 10.5%
• Paid subscription revenues through streaming services jumped to $2 billion as 28 million new subscribers signed on.

Now let’s turn to Canada:

• Revenues were up 8.2%. This is the first time this century that the Canadian industry showed a gain. Thank you, Drake, Bieber, The Weeknd, etc.
• 35% of the Canadian market is physical, the rest digital
• Paid streaming is up 151%.
• Free streaming is up 32%

Still think that streaming isn’t the way we’re going?  More Via Billboard.

Meanwhile, Music Industry Blog has some much deeper analysis.

.