Emerging Music Markets: Streaming’s Third Wave

MIDiA has just published a new report that deep dives into how streaming is, or in some cases is not, lifting off in emerging markets. The regions we focused on were Russia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, China and India. The report ‘Emerging Music Markets: Streaming’s Third Wave’ is immediately available to MIDiA subscription clients and can also be purchased, along with its full dataset (including service- and country-level subscriber and free users numbers, as well as consumer data for India and China) on our report store here.

Here are some of the key findings and themes of the report.

With streaming growth set to slow in mature western markets by 2019, the next wave of fast growth will come from a mixture of mid-tier markets such as Mexico, Brazil, Japan and Germany. The lower income mid-tier markets such as Brazil and Mexico are so populous that the urban elites have been big enough to generate paid user bases that are comparable to those of smaller European markets. The real scale opportunity, however, exists in monetising lower income groups with much cheaper propositions. Beyond that, the streaming market will need to look towards emerging markets for growth. Emerging markets in Asia and Africa present a diverse variety of opportunities, but current evidence suggests that the outlook for these markets is far from uniform.

The rule that defines emerging markets for streaming music is that there isn’t one. China has a large base of free users and a solid base of subscribers. India has large numbers of free users, but a tiny paid base. Russia and the Middle East both have a solid ratio of free-to-paid users while Africa has the lowest per capita metrics for both paid and free.

Arguably, the single most important reason for these differences is mobile data network availability and affordability. In China and India mobile data use is increasingly widespread, making streaming a compelling proposition, while in most sub-Saharan African countries coverage is patchy and expensive.

Despite their differences, these regions will be crucial to the long-term outlook for streaming growth. So, mapping their respective trajectories helps to forecast long-term global market growth for streaming. Rights holders will need to innovate out of their comfort zone if they are to truly seize the emerging markets opportunity. The fact that Nigeria’s MTN only gets a retail ARPU of around $2 a year across sub-Saharan Africa for its music products, including ringtones and downloads, hints at where ARPU expectations may have to be set.

Companies and brands mentioned in the report:Baidu Music, Gaana, Hungama, iRoking, Jio Music, Kugou, Kuwo, Mdundo, Mkito, MTN, MTN Music+, Mzliki, Netease Cloud Music, QQ Music, Quan Min K G, Saavn, Simfy Africa, Vkontakte, Vkontakte Music, Vuga, Wynk Music, Yandex, Yandex Music, Zvook

Click here to view the report on MIDiA’s report store.

Announcing MIDiA’s Streaming Services Market Shares Report

As the streaming music market matures, the bar is continually raised for the quality of data required, both in terms of granularity and accuracy. At MIDiA we have worked hard to earn a reputation for high-quality, reliable datasets that go far beyond what is available elsewhere. This gives our clients a competitive edge. We are now taking this approach a major step forward with the launch of MIDiA’s Streaming Services Market Shares report. This is our most comprehensive streaming dataset yet, and there is, quite simply, nothing else like it out there. Knowing the size of streaming revenues, or the global subscriber counts of music services is useful, but it isn’t enough. Nor even, is knowing country level streaming revenue figures. So, we built a global market shares model that breaks out subscription revenues (trade and retail), subscribers, and subscription market shares for more than 30 music services at country level, across 30 countries and regions. You want to know how much subscription revenue Spotify is generating in Canada? How many subscribers Apple Music has in Germany? How much subscription revenue QQ Music is generating China? This is the report for you. Here are some highlights:

 

• At the end of 2016 there were 132.6 million music subscribers, up from 76.8 million in 2015
• In Q4 2016 Spotify’s subscriber market share was 35% and it had $2,766 million in retail revenue
• Apple Music was second with 21 million subscribers at the end of 2016, a 15.6% market share and it had $912 million in retail revenue
• In 2016 Apple was the largest driver of digital music revenue across Apple Music and iTunes
• The US is the largest music subscription market, which Spotify leads with 38% subscriber market share
• The UK is Europe’s largest streaming market, which Spotify also leads
• China’s subscriber base is the second largest globally, but it ranks just 13th in revenue terms
• Japan is the world’s third largest subscription market, in which Amazon has the largest subscriber market share
• Brazil is Latin America’s largest music subscription market

The report contains 23 pages and 13 charts with full country detail as well as audience engagement metrics. The dataset includes four worksheets and a comprehensive methodology statement.

Streaming Services Market Shares is available right now to MIDiA premium subscribers. If you would like to learn more about how to access MIDiA’s analysis and data, email Stephen@midiaresearch.com.

The report and data is also available as a standalone purchase on MIDiA’s report store as part of our ‘Streaming Music Metrics Bundle’. This bundle additionally includes MIDiA’s ‘State of The Streaming Nation 2.1’. This is our mid-year 2017 update to the exhaustive assessment of the streaming music market first published in May. It includes data on revenue, forecasts, consumer attitudes and behaviour, YouTube, app usage and audience trends.

Examples of country graphics (data labels removed in this preview)