State of the Streaming Nation 3.0: Multi-Paced Growth

Regular followers of MIDiA will know that one of our flagship releases is our State of the Streaming Nation report. Now into its third year, this report is the definitive assessment of the streaming music market. Featuring 16 data charts, 37 pages and 5,700 words, this year’s edition of the State of the Streaming Nation covers everything from user behaviour, weekly active users of the leading streaming apps, willingness to pay, adoption drivers, revenues, forecasts, subscriber market shares, label market shares, tenure and playlist usage. The consumer data covers the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria and the UK, while the market data and forecasts cover 35 markets. The report includes the report PDF, a full Powerpoint deck and a six sheet Excel file with more than 23,000 data points. This really is everything you need to know about the global streaming market.

The report is immediately available to MIDiA clients and is also now available for purchase from our report store here. And – for a very limited-time offer, until midnight 31^stJuly (i.e. Wednesday) the report is discounted by 50% to £2,500. This is a strictly time-limited offer, with the price returning to the standard £5,000 on Thursday.

Below are some details of the report.

The 20,000 Foot View: 2018 was yet another strong year for streaming music growth, with the leading streaming services consolidating their market shares. Consumer adoption continues to grow but as leading markets mature, future growth will depend upon mid-tier markets and later on emerging markets. Disruption continues to echo throughout the market with artists direct making up ground and Spotify spreading its strategic wings. Utilising proprietary supply- and demand-side data, this third edition of MIDiA’s State of the Streaming Nation pulls together all the must-have data on the global streaming market to give you the definitive picture of where streaming is.

Key findings: 

THE MARKET

• Streaming revenue was up $X billion on 2017 to reach $X billion in 2018 in label trade, representing X% of total recorded music market growth
• Universal Music consolidated its market-leading role with $X billion, representing X% of all streaming revenue
• There were X million music subscribers globally in Q4 2018 with Spotify, Apple and Amazon accounting for X% of all subscribers, up from X% in Q4 2015
• With X% weekly active user (WAU) penetration YouTube dominates streaming audiences, representing X% of all of the WAU music audiences surveyed

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

• X% of consumers stream music for free, peaking at X% in South Korea and dropping to just X% in Japan
• X% of consumers are music subscribers, peaking in developed streaming markets Sweden (X%) and South Korea (X%)
• Free streaming penetration is high among those aged 16-19 (X%), 20-24 (X%) and 25-34 (X%) while among those aged 55+ penetration is just X%
• Podcast penetration is X% with pronounced country-level variation, ranging from just X% in Austria to X% in Sweden

ADOPTION

• 61% of music subscribers report having become subscribers either via a free trial or a $1 for three months paid trial
• Costing less than $X is the most-cited adoption driver for music subscriptions at X%
• Today’s Top Hits and the Global Top 50 claim the joint top spot for Spotify playlists among users, both X%
• As of Q1 2019 there were X YouTube music videos viewed one billion-plus times, of which X were two billion-plus view videos and X were three billion-plus

OUTLOOK

• In retail terms global streaming music revenues were $X billion in 2018 in retail terms, up X% on 2017, and will grow to $X billion in 2026
• There were X million music subscribers in 2018, up from X million in 2017 with Xmillion individual subscriptions

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Alexa, Amazon Music Unlimited, Amazon Prime Music, Anchor, Anghami, Apple, Apple Music, Beats One, CDBaby, Deezer, Deezer Flow, Echo, Gimlet, Google, Google Play Music, KuGou, Kuwo, Loudr, MelOn, Napster, Netflix, Pandora, Parcast, QQ Music, RapCaviar, Rock Classics, Rock This, Sony Music, Soundcloud, SoundTrap, Spotify, Tencent Music Entertainment, Tidal, Today’s Top Hits, T-Series, Tunecore, Universal Music, Warner Music, YouTube

New MIDiA Latin American Streaming Report, in English, Spanish and Portuguese

MIDiA has just published its latest report on the Latin American streaming music market, and we have versions available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

MIDiA has been tracking the Latin American music market for over five years, including annual consumer data and market metrics.

Our latest report ‘Latin America Streaming Music Market: YouTube and Spotify Take Hold’is written by our long term Latin American music analyst Leo Morel and features data on Mexico, Brazil and the region as a whole.

 

 

The report includes analysis and data on:

• Consumer adoption of YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and other streaming services
• Playlist penetration
• Wider consumer music behaviour eg downloads, CDs
• Streaming revenues (subscriptions, ad supported music ad supported video)
• Streaming users (subscriptions, ad supported music ad supported video)

Companies and brands mentioned in the report: Apple, Deezer, Google, iPhone, iTunes, Movistar, Spotify, TIM, Virgin Mobile, Vevo, Vivo, YouTube

The reports are immediately available to our clients, while you can purchase the individual reports here:

• English
• Spanish
• Portuguese

The reports each come with PDF, Slides, Excel and infographic.

For any questions please email info@midiaresearch.com

How YouTube’s 1bn+ Club is Changing the Face of Global Music Culture

Throughout 2018, while locked in a bitter war of words with rightsholders and creators over Article 13, YouTube quietly but dramatically expanded its role as the most powerful platform for creating global superstars. Nowhere is this better illustrated than with the YouTube music videos that have one billion streams or more. Not only did that number become bigger than ever in 2018, but the rate at which videos joined the 1bn+ club grew too. With music audiences fragmenting into algorithmically defined niches, YouTube continues to create truly global scale, mass market audiences.

As of Q1 2019, 139 music videos have joined the 1bn+ club, with a record 52 of those reaching one billion in 2018 alone. Not only are more YouTube videos joining the 1bn+ club, but they are getting there faster. On average, the 1bn+ videos released in 2018 got to that milestone ten times faster than those released at the start of the decade. But something very interesting is happening. Now that Latin America and US Hispanics are becoming a major constituency of the YouTube audience, Latin music videos are becoming the dominant part of the 1bn+ club. 63% of all 2018 videos that reached one billion streams were Latin music videos. YouTube is fast establishing itself as the consumption method of choice for Latin American audiences, and their listening behaviour is helping reshape the face of global music culture. In doing so, YouTube is helping to create a new generation of superstars – Latin superstars.

The artist with more 1bn+ videos than any other is Puerta Rican reggaetón and Latin trap artist Ozuna. He appears, either as the lead artist or as a featured artist, on eight, yes eight, videos with a billion streams or more, generating 10.1 billion streams to date. Although Anglo-centric artists fill three of the other top five spots, the tide is turning. In 2018 Latin 1bn+ videos generated three and a half times as many streams as Anglo-centric pop 1bn+ videos did.

There is another important, less obvious implication of the rise of Latin artists on YouTube. Latin America is now such a large part of the global streaming user base that it can generate hits that look global in scale, but in reality are only regional. India will start to do the same in 2019 and 2020. Record labels need to take a more nuanced approach to reading global-scale data trends. Just because a track breaks into Spotify’s Global 100 does not mean it is a global hit. In today’s world, global scale does not always mean global appeal.

Hip Hop, a tale of two streams

On audio streaming services Hip Hop is the ubiquitous genre, with its artists among the highest profile in the music industry. Spotify’s top three most streamed tracks of 2018 were all Hip Hop, while for Apple Music it made up the entire top seven. Among YouTube’s biggest tracks, however, Hip Hop is a minor player, with just 7% of 1bn+ videos. Demographics and geography play roles, but so do the respective relationships of the platforms with the major labels. The labels have more overall influence on Spotify and Apple Music’s programming, and additionally focus intense efforts on influencing their curated playlists (Spotify especially). Because Hip Hop is the priority genre for the major labels, all of whom have a strong US-centric worldview, Apple Music and Spotify end up with a strong Hip Hop skew. YouTube, however, is much less directly influenced by the record labels and relies on algorithms rather than programming to surface content for its users. YouTube’s genre mix thus more closely follows the tastes of its users, while Apple and Spotify’s more closely follow the priorities of the labels.

So, what does the rise of Latin artists and the under-performance of Hip Hop on YouTube say about today’s global music landscape? For me, it is this:

Anglo-centric artists have been the global superstars for decades because it took the marketing dollars of big, global record labels to make them. Now, large scale, regional audiences can have the same impact, by just listening.

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This post highlights just some of the data and findings that are going to be revealed in our forthcoming report: 1bn+ Music Videos: Latin Takeover

 If you are a MIDiA client and would like to get early access to the data email enquiries@midiaresearch.com

 If you want to learn more about how to become a MIDiA client, email stephen@midiaresearch.com