After The Download: When Apple Turns Off The iTunes Store

 

When new formats race to the fore it is easy to make the mistake of taking an eye off the legacy formats. This is risky because they usually still account for very large portions of existing revenue. Now that the marketplace has finally accepted that streaming does in fact cannibalize download sales (indeed 27% of subscribers say they have stopped buying downloads) the attention has, understandably, simply shifted to figuring out how quickly streaming revenue will grow. At a macro level this is fine, in fact it even works at a big label and publisher level. But it is far more challenging for smaller labels and publishers, and also for artists and songwriters. Each of these constituencies still depends heavily on download sales. Of course the big labels and publishers do too, but their repertoire portfolios are so large that they can take the macro view. For the rest though, because the average royalty income per album per streaming user is just $0.21, download sales remain crucial to cash flow. So, what happens when the download dies?

The demise of legacy formats normally follows this pattern:

1. An accelerated initial decline as early adopters abandon the technology in favour of the shiny new thing
2. A steadier, slower, long term decline as the mainstream migrates away, leaving only the laggards
3. A sudden death when the sales channel no longer supports the product (think black and white TVs, cassette decks, VHS recorders etc.)

The CD is clearly following this trend but phase 3 will be long in coming because it is so easy for Amazon to continue stocking product, especially super high end box sets etc. Meanwhile discount retailers, petrol stations, convenience stores etc. will continue to find space for super low end cheap catalogue CDs. For downloads though, there is likely to be a near-sudden halt within the next 5 years. Although Amazon has made solid inroads into the music download business, Apple remains by far the dominant player. Thus the music industry is in effect dependent on the strategic whims on one partner for one of its most important revenue streams.

Subscriptions Are Key To Apple’s Services Narrative

Apple has historically been in the music business for one reason, to help sell more devices. That’s why Steve Jobs was happy to accept a 65% label revenue share model that ensured it was nigh on impossible to run a digital music business as a profit making venture i.e. he wanted to lock the market into a commercial model that neutered the competitive marketplace. We’re still feeling the effects of that now, with that 65% benchmark being the reference point against which streaming rates have been set.

No new news there. But what is new, is that Apple is trying to pivot its business towards a services based model. Apple is building a Wall Street narrative around monetizing its existing user base. It needs that narrative because device sales are slowing. Until it gets another hit device that can grow another new-ish marketplace (VR anyone?) Apple needs to focus on driving extra revenue from its base of device users. This has much to do with why Apple chose to enter the streaming market now as did any other factor. While the download business generated solid headline revenue it did not have the benefit of being predictable, on going spend in the way that subscriptions are.

So music is now more important to Apple because it is the entry point for its services based business model. Eventually music will lose importance to video, and potentially games too if Apple can build a subscription business around that. But for now Apple will be looking to migrate as many of its iTunes customers as possible to subscriptions, whatever it might actually be saying to record labels!

Turning Off The iTunes Store

And this is where the download collapse comes in. Last year downloads declined by 16% in nominal terms. This year they are tracking to decline by between 25% and 30%. If we trend that forwards there will only be a modest download business of around $600 million by 2019, down from a high of $3.9 billion in 2012. For Apple, if it continues to grow its subscription business at its current rate, hitting 20 million subscribers by end 2016 and around 28 by end 2017 etc, by 2020 its download business would be tracking to be 10 times smaller than streaming revenue but, crucially, streaming revenue would nearly have reached the 2012 iTunes Store download revenue peak. This is the point at which Apple would chose to turn off the iTunes Store. The narrative of services based music business would be complete.

Smaller labels, publishers, artists and songwriters all better have a Plan B in place before this transpires. The download was a fantastic transition product to give the music industry its first steps into the digital era. But as we transition from transactional models to consumption based ones, its role diminishes every passing year. It has served the market well, but the end is now in sight.

 

 

Apple, Beats and Streaming’s Mutual Fear Factor

Although the Apple-Beats deal is about far more than just streaming music, it is nonetheless an important part of the puzzle.  Apple has been going slow with streaming, introducing cloud experiences (iCloud, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio, Video rentals) slowly so as not to alienate its less tech-adventurous mainstream user base.  That strategy remains valid and will continue, but it has failed to protect the defection of its core, high value, early adopters.  This is why Apple has to get serious about streaming fast: it is scared of losing its best customers.  It is also why all other streaming companies, whatever they may admit publically, are getting ready to run scared.  This is streaming music’s mutual fear factor:

• Velvet handcuffs: Music downloads are monetized CRM for Apple, a means of enhancing the device experience.  Purchased tracks and an iTunes managed library act as velvet handcuffs for Apple device owners.  But for those consumers that use a streaming subscription app, the playlists and music collection can exist on any device.  Suddenly the handcuffs slip off.  This is why Apple has to get streaming right in short order.  It simply cannot afford to lose swathes of its most valuable device customers at the next handset replacement cycle.
• Chinks in the iTunes armour: Until the launch of the App Store, 3^rd party music services had no way of breaking into the iTunes ecosystem and were, in the main, doomed to the role of also rans.  The App Store was the chink in the otherwise impregnable iTunes armour that allowed those 3^rd parties to not just launch punitive raids but to set up camp in Apple’s heartlands. It was the price Apple had to pay to enter the next phase of its business, but now it is ready to shore up its defences once more.
• Eating from Apple’s table: The vast majority of streaming music subscribers were already digital download buyers first, and of those the majority were either current or past iTunes Store customers when they became subscribers.  On a global scale, subscriptions have first and foremost been about transitioning existing spending rather than creating new digital customers. The picture is very different in Nordics, the Netherlands and South Korea but those markets contribute far less to global scale than the markets (US, UK, Australia etc.) where this trend dominates.  Apple has provided the core addressable market for streaming services for the last five years.  Now those companies worry over where will they be able to get new subscribers if Apple start taking subscriptions seriously.
• Apple will not have to play fair: Although Apple knows it is under the watchful eye of various regulatory authorities following the eBook price fixing episode, there is still plenty it can do to make life hard for 3^rd party streaming services.  Just take a look at what Amazon is reportedly getting away with in its book pricing dispute with Hachette: delaying shipments of the publisher’s books to customers, removing buy buttons from pre-ordered books, even pointing Amazon customers to competitive titles when searching for Hachette books.  Fair play or foul, the power of the retailer is huge.  Whether Apple simply ensures Spotify et al don’t appear in search results, or that they are never quite able to integrate seamlessly with iOS anymore for no specific reason that anyone can quite put their finger on….But even without resorting to such behavior, simply by deeply integrating an Apple (or Beats) branded subscription service natively into its devices and ecosystem, Apple will have the upper hand and 3^rd parties will find it a whole lot harder to fish in Apple’s waters.

None of this is necessarily bad for the market either.  In fact it could be just what the subscriptions business needs.  To finally focus on green field opportunity beyond the confines of the Apple elite.  Nor should Apple even limit its subscription focus to streaming or to music.  The rise of the Content Connectors points to Apple, Amazon and Google pursuing digital content strategies in the round, that do not get bogged down with super serving any individual content type at the expense of the rest.  Apple’s best mid-term subscription play may yet simply prove to be a monthly allowance of iTunes credit across all content types, bundled into the cost of the device.  Put that on top of iCloud, iTunes Radio, Beats Music and suddenly you have a very compelling multi-content offering.  Something far out of the reaches of the current product roadmaps of any of the stand alone music services.

Can Apple afford to loss lead with music subscriptions to pursue such a strategy?  Well, remember Apple’s entire digital music business has been built on loss leading.  Whatever the final outcome, the mutual fear factor balance looks set to tip in Apple’s favour for a while.

How The iPad May Help Soften The Decline Of The Download

In this previous post I outlined how the rise in mobile app spending is directly cannibalising iTunes music spending.  That decline was only a few percentage points in 2013 because of a confluence of factors, not least the fact that the US download market (Apple’s biggest) only fell by 3% in 2013 while the UK (another key Apple market) grew by 3% and growth also came in other major music markets and a bunch of emerging markets with scale. Throughout the course of 2014 downloads however will probably decline more sharply due to both app competition and also to the fact many of the highest spending download buyers are now subscription service customers.  But there is a slither of light for the download market….the iPad.

Apple’s customer base has changed a lot over the years.  Once being an Apple customer meant being at the bleeding edge of innovation in consumer technology.  Now it is a much more mainstream user base that in turn compels Apple to innovate at a pace appropriate for their more timid tastes.  The evolution of the iPad customer base followed a similar path: once the device of the true Apple aficionado the iPad quickly developed a distinctly populist appeal, especially the iPad Mini.

The iPad Is An iTunes Beachhead Among Android Users

But what is most interesting about iPad owners from a music industry perspective is that so many of them are Android phone users, 32% of them to be precise (see figure).  The iPad is acting as an iTunes beachhead among Android phone users.  It is a less surprising trend than might at first appear because Tablets and smartphones have highly distinct purchase consideration cycles and retail chain dynamics.  A smartphone is most often intimately tied to a mobile carrier relationship and the sales process will have as much to do with what device a carrier is pushing as it will with consumer preference.  A tablet though is, most often, not tied to a carrier and the purchase consideration cycle is instead much more about aspiration and desirability.  Other tablets might beat the iPad in terms of price and specs, but the iPad is the aspirational tablet.

The iPad Mini Effect

The trend is even more pronounced among iPad Mini owners: 48% of them are Android smartphone users, highlighting the success of this SKU to reach new consumer segments.  Meanwhile a whopping 68% of iPad Intenders – i.e. consumers that plan to buy an iPad – are Android smartphone users.  Although this figure has to be discounted to account for aspiration rather than likely intent, the directional trend is clear: Android smartphone users are a major share of iPad owners and iPad Intenders.  With all the perpetual talk of who will win the smartphone wars the iPad’s ability to grow Apple’s customer footprint almost goes unnoticed.  The fact 57% of iPad Mini customers are female indicates just how good a job the device does of reaching beyond the male dominated early adopter niche.

Because an iPad customer is also inherently an iTunes user significant opportunity exists for content providers.  For all Google Play’s valiant efforts – and extensive marketing spend – no one else manages to get people to buy music downloads the way Apple does.  More Android customers becoming iTunes users via the iPad presents the opportunity to grow the installed base of music download buyers.  And there are encouraging indicators: only 26% of iPad customers do not buy music, compared to 49% of all consumers and 47% of overall Android smartphone users.

iPad Owners Want Apps Too

But before we get too carried away with how a new wave of iPad owners are going to save the music download sector we also need to consider why consumers are buying these devices and what use cases they best serve. The fact they have a tablet indicates they are at the more sophisticated end of the Android phone user base so they probably already use their Android phone for listening to music on.  An iPad is a device purpose built for web surfing, video viewing and mobile app usage.  So it is to be expected that the lion’s share of content spending from these new iTunes converts will be on apps.  Music spending will however be a part of the mix and thus we can expect the influx of new-to-Apple iPad owners driving new music download spending that while it may not be enough to counteract the bigger decline it will help slow it.

What Is Really Cannibalising Download Sales

As 2013 music sales figures come in, the picture of streaming growing while download sales slow is coming sharply into focus. It is one of a clear phase  of transition/cannibalization (delete as appropriate depending on your point of view) taking place because the majority of paying music subscribers were already download buyers.  But that is not the whole picture.  There is an even fiercer form of competition for spend that, as far as the music industry is concerned, is inarguably driving cannibalization.

The iTunes Store accounts for the majority of the global music download market and has done so since its inception eleven years ago.  Back when it launched, the iTunes Music Store helped transform the iPod from a modestly performing device into a global hit.  Music was the killer app, music was what Apple used to sell the device and music is what iTunes customers spent all of their money on.  But all of that changed.  As Apple’s devices have done progressively more, Apple has introduced new content types into its store that better show off the capabilities of its devices.  When Apple launches a new iPad it doesn’t have a label exec holding up the new device playing a song with static artwork displayed…that simply would not showcase the device’s capabilities.  Instead an EA Games exec gets up on stage with a new game that fully leverages the capabilities of the iPad’s graphics accelerator, the accelerometer, the multi touch screen etc.

Music may still be the single most popular entertainment activity conducted on iDevices but it is no longer the app that fully harnesses the devices’ capabilities.  In fact because music products and services remain stuck in the rut of delivering static audio files – YouTube notably excepted – it is increasingly failing to compete at the top table in terms of connected device experiences.  Crucially, this is not just a behavioral trend, it is directly impacting spending too (see figure).

Back in 2003 music accounted for 100% of iTunes Store revenue because that was all that was available.  Over the years Apple introduced countless new content types, each of which progressively competed for the iTunes buyer’s wallet share.  The step change though occurred in 2008 with the launch of the App Store.  The impact was instant and by mid 2009 music already accounted for less than 50% of iTunes revenue.   By the end of 2003 the transformation was complete with Apps accounting for 62% of spending and music less than a quarter.  Quite a fall from grace for what was once the undisputed king of the iTunes castle.

Now it is clear that the app economy is a bubble that is likely to undergo some form of recalibration process soon (80%+ of revenues are in app, 90%+ of those are games, and the lion’s share of those revenues are concentrated in a handful of companies) but the damage has already been done to music spending.

If music industry concerns about download cannibalization should be addressed anywhere it is first and foremost at apps.  At least with streaming services consumer spending remains within music rather than seeping out to games.  Though the bulk of the app revenue is ‘found’ incremental revenue, apps are additionally competing for the share of the iTunes’ customers wallet i.e. growth is coming both from green field spend and at the expense of other content types.

So what can the music industry do?  It would be as foolish as it would be futile to try to hold back the tide. Instead, music product strategy needs to do more to embrace the app economy.  That means, among other things:

• More fully leverage in-app payments (and that means labels will have to take some of the hit on the 30% app store tax)
• Learn to harness the dynamics of games (that does not mean ‘gamify’ music products necessarily – though it can mean that too – but to understand what makes casual app games resonate)
• Develop digital era, multimedia products (see this report for some pointers on where music product strategy should go)

Though we are nowhere close to talking about the death of music downloads, apps have turned the tide for music spending.  The music industry can either sit back and feel sorry for itself, or seize the app opportunity by the scruff of the neck.

For Those About to Download….

This week Apple and Colombia announced the arrival of another big digital holdout to the iTunes Store: AC/DC.  Having grown up listening to AC/DC and playing Angus Young riffs such as the seminal ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ in my high school heavy metal band, my level of interest in this announcement is perhaps a little biased.  But there are a couple of important factors here:

• The digital hold outs are being won over by downloads. When Apple first launched the iTunes Music Store there were plenty of high profile holdouts, the most significant of which being the Beatles.  Over the subsequent years most of those holdouts have come on board.  iTunes is no longer the scary unknown quantity it once was.  iTunes is now the establishment. Its FUD Factor (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) has largely diminished.
• But streaming is still a step too far. By contrast streaming services such as Spotify are at a much earlier stage of their evolution and their FUD Factor is high.  Thus Spotify has a sizeable body of holdouts, including AC/DC. The same fear of the unknown that once afflicted iTunes now tars Spotify, Deezer, Rdio et al.  The paid download might feel like the embodiment of security and safeness now, but back in the early noughties it struck terror into the hearts of many music industry executives who, rightly as it transpired, feared that it would result in consumers hacking away at albums to skip to the singles.  Streaming will ultimately hone its model and win over the doubters but it will be a slow and steady process.  After all it took a decade for AC/DC to be won over by iTunes.

The Importance of Not Getting too Hung Up on Yesterday’s Stars

Back when the Beatles were finally licensed to the iTunes Store I went on record as saying it wasn’t actually a big deal for the digital music market.  I found myself the subject of torrents of abuse from Beatles fans (for entertainment’s sake you can see the comments here). The point I was making was that the Beatles, as important as they are both creatively and commercially, are part of the past.  They are not what matters to the generation of young music fans that the music industry really needs to win over with (paid) digital services.  The Digital Natives who currently just aren’t spending money on music.  The Beatles were a big coup but they mattered much more to Steve Job’s generation than to tweens and teenagers.  For sake of impartiality I have to apply the same rule to AC/DC, who matter much more to my generation than to the Digital Natives.  AC/DC finally being won over to the iTunes Store is important progress, but much more important will be more digital services which get young music fans on the music spending ladder.  BBM Music is a rare and under-appreciated foray into this market.

Defusing the Demographic Timebomb

A Demographic Timebomb is ticking: unless the Digital Natives start spending meaningful amounts of money on music soon (either directly or indirectly) the gaping hole they will leave in music spending as they get older (and thus have more music to spend) will make the current decline in music revenues look like a mere blip.  In fact this is a warning I first made 7 years ago, and we are already feeling the first effects, but there is still time to address the issue.

A lot is made of the importance of iTunes in tapping the young, pre-credit card market, by dint of teenagers using their parents’ iTunes accounts to buy music. It is certainly an important factor but the scale is far below where it needs to be to have a meaningful impact on the pre-credit card youth and it is unfair to expect Apple to bear all of that burden. Although it is worth considering that as the iPod transitions towards being a youth product that Apple may yet be the key link in the youth chain.

So welcome to the digital age AC/DC, and congratulations to Apple for getting them on board the digital bandwagon, but I hope your arrival does not distract from the even more important task of winning over the Digital Natives.