Music Streaming Revenues Surge

Online streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have become the recording industry’s single biggest revenue source, overtaking physical sales of CDS and digital downloads for the first time.

The rapid growth in streaming music services in recent years has led to a recovery in the fortunes of the global recorded music industry, which enjoyed its third year of positive revenue growth, according to a report by industry body IFPI.

Improving finances have led to a tentative re-evaluation of the music industry by stock market investors, who had shied away from the struggling media category for much of the past decade due to a wave of piracy by users and major technology shifts.

During April and early May this year, streaming music subscription leader Spotify, held a record-setting public stock offering. France’s Vivendi, the owner of Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music label, said last week it was mulling a stock market

listing of its wholly owned music unit.

Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), which attracts three-quarters of China’s booming music streaming market, has been reported by The Wall Street Journal to be eyeing a listing later in 2018. TME is controlled by internet giant Tencent.

Industry leaders say the growing adoption of paid music streaming services is enabling the market to reach new regions of the world while helping to wean a generation of music fans away from free or pirated music.

“We estimate that only half the world’s population lives in a thriving music environment and we want to bring the streaming revolution to all of it,” Stu Bergen, from Warner Music Group, told reporters in London.