Recorded music market 2022 | Reality bites

Following a spectacular year of growth in 2021, global recorded music revenue growth slowed significantly in 2022 due to the combined impact of global economic headwinds and growth slowdown in mature streaming markets. Context, though, is everything – not many industries can deliver solid growth while the global economy is in turmoil, ad markets are falling and many emerging tech sectors are in crisis.

Global recorded music growth has oscillated in recent years, slowing in the pandemic, booming in 2021, and then returning to more modest growth in 2022.

2022 was a year of realignment for much of the global economy, and the music business had to contend not only with the wider trend of the cost-of-living-crisis, but also rising interest rates softening music catalogue M+A demand and the long expected streaming slowdown kicking in. It is testament to the solidity of the recorded music market that, despite these multiple headwinds, global revenues grew by 6.7% to reach $31.2 billion in 2022. While this was significantly down on the 24.8% registered in 2021, it illustrates the strong role music plays in consumers’ lives, especially in uncertain times when escapism and identity are more important than ever. The persistent value of music was even more strongly illustrated by music publishing, which grew by 16.6% in 2022.

Streaming was again the main driver of industry growth, with revenues up by $1.5 billion in 2022 (8.3% growth), though this was less than half the $4.2 billion added in 2021.  The slowdown was underpinned by a) slowing subscriptions growth in mature markets; b) a slowdown in ad-supported revenues, reflecting wider advertising market dynamics. Music subscriber growth was markedly stronger, up by 13.7% to 652 million, however, the more mature North America and Europe regions accounted for just a third of the growth. Emerging markets will become a progressively larger part of global streaming growth, but due to lower ARPU and low shares of Anglo repertoire, the divergence between growth revenue and subscriber growth rates seen in 2022 will become a long-term market characteristic.

Independent labels and artists direct both strongly out-performed the wider streaming market, growing streaming revenues by 13.9% and 17.9% respectively. In terms of total recorded music revenues, 

UMG added more recorded music revenue in 2022 than the other two majors, adding $0.5 billion to reach $9.2 billion, giving it a 29.5% share of the global recorded music market. UMG’s percentage growth (6.2%), though, was slower than SMG’s (8.7%), with SMG gaining 0.4 points of market share.

Artists direct (i.e., artists who release without labels, directly via a distributor) were the big success story once again, growing by 16.6% in 2022 to generate $1.7 billion of recorded music revenue, giving it a 5.7% market share, up from 5.2% in 2021. 

Independent labels also outgrew the wider market (up by 7.1%), and the combined market share of artists direct and independent labels reached 34.6% in 2022, up from 34.0% in 2021. Though it is worth noting that this does not include the additional revenue from independent labels distributed by major labels.

Combined, independent labels and artists direct, were the largest single market segment with $10.8 billion.

Though overall market growth was down in 2022 compared to 2021, 2021 was in many respects a year of artificially accentuated, post-Covid growth, while 2022 was at the opposite end of the scale, with a host of economic headwinds. In this context, 6.7% growth for 2022 could be considered even more of an achievement than the 24.8% achieved in 2021.

The full report and dataset (with quarterly revenue by segment and format going back to Q1 2015) will be shortly available to MIDiA clients. If you are not a MIDiA client and would like to learn how to get access to our research, data and analysis, email stephen@midiaresearch.com

Artists Direct and Streaming the Big Winners in 2018

With less than two weeks of 2018 left, the die is largely cast for the year, but we’ll have to wait at least a couple more months for the major labels to announce their results (though WMG still hasn’t declared its calendar Q3 results), and then another month or so for the IFPI numbers. So, in the meantime, here are MIDiA’s forecasts for 2018 based on the first three quarters of the year and early indicators for Q4.

To create our end of year revenue estimate, we collected data from record labels, national trade associations and also confidential data from the leading Artist Direct / DIY platforms. We plugged this data into MIDiA’s Music Market Share model and benchmarked against quarterly and full year 2017 growth.

The headline results:

• Recorded music revenue will hit $18.9 billion this year: This represents an increase of 8.2% on 2017 which is a slight lower growth rate than 2016–2017, which was up 9%. However, net new revenue ($1.4 billion) – is almost exactly the same amount as one year previously. The recorded music market appears to be settled into a steady, strong growth pattern.
• Streaming revenue up to $9.6 billion: The 41% growth rate of 2017 may be gone, replaced by 29%, but the absolute amount of new revenue generated was, as with the recorded music total, the same as 2017 $2.2 billion. There was enough growth in the big mature streaming markets – the US especially – to ensure that streaming continued to plot a strong course in 2018. Though the fact that total revenues grew by $0.8 billion less than streaming revenue, indicates the pace at which legacy formats continue to decline.
• Artists Direct the big winners: MIDiA was the first to quantify the global revenue contribution of the Artists Direct (i.e. Independent Artists, DIY etc.) last year when we published our annual market shares report. Now we can report that the spectacular growth registered by this segment continued in 2018. Total Artist Direct revenue was $643 million, up an impressive 35% on 2017, i.e. more than three times faster than the market. Unlike the rest of the market, Artists Direct revenue growth is accelerating in both percentage and absolute terms, with market share up from 2.7% in 2017 to 3.4% in 2018. (It’s worth noting that only a portion of Artists Direct revenue is measured by the IFPI. Categories such as at-gig CD sales aren’t captured by either the labels or measurement companies that national trade associations depend upon to measure the market. So, expect the IFPI’s global recorded music total to come in closer to $18.6 billion).

It was another great year for the recorded music business, with streaming consolidating its role as industry engine room. Here are the key takeaways for 2019:

• Global recorded revenues will grow once again in 2019 – this rebound has a good number of years left in it. Even if label revenues hit $25 billion (where the market was at in 2000 before the decline) in real terms (i.e. factoring in inflation etc.), that would actually be around half the actual value. While it is not realistic to expect a $50 billion market, getting towards the inflation-reduced $25 billion is certainly a realistic target.
• Streaming growth will slow in the big mature markets (US, UK), but impact will be offset by growth in markets such as Japan, Germany, Brazil, Mexico. Overall market growth, though still strong, will be slower.
• 2019 will be a coming of age year for Artists Direct, label services companies, JVs and other alternative models that have been establishing themselves in recent years. It’s never been a better time to be an artist, as long as you and / or your management are clued up enough to know what to ask for.

Global Recorded Music Revenues Grew By $1.1 Billion In 2016

Following on from the global market share numbers we released on Sunday, here are our findings regarding the growth of the overall market.

Throughout 2016 as the major label earnings were coming in there was a growing awareness that 2016 was going to be a landmark year for the recorded music business. It finally looked like streaming was going to push the industry into growth. Now with full year numbers in, the picture is even more positive than it first appeared. The recorded music market grew by 7% in 2016, adding $1.1 billion, reaching $16.1 billion, by far the largest growth the recorded music business has experienced since Napster and co pushed revenues into free fall.

While it is too early to state that the corner has been turned, this is clearly a turning point of some form for the business. Underpinning the growth was streaming which grew by 57% in 2016 to reach $5.4 billion, up from $3.5 billion in 2015. Spotify has been key to this growth, accounting for 43% of the 106.3 million subscribers at the end of 2016. 2017 should see further strong streaming growth with another 40.3 million subscribers added, more than the 38.8 added in 2016. Apple Music and Deezer also both contributed strongly to growth and market share. Additionally, Amazon upped its game in 2016 and the introduction of the $3.99 Amazon Prime Music Unlimited Echo bundle could open up swathes of new, more mainstream users.

Based strictly upon the recorded music revenue that is reported in financial accounts by the major record labels and / or their parent companies combined with trade association and collection society data, the 3 majors labels collectively generated $11 billion of gross revenue in 2016. Universal Music generated the most with $4.6 billion representing 28.9% of the market total. Sony followed with $3.6 billion (22.4%) and Warner with $2.8 billion (17.4%). These numbers do not include any corrections for any independent revenues that are recognised by major labels because they are distributed by majors or major owned distributors. Thus the ‘actual’ independent share will be higher but can only be accurately measured with a separate survey, so watch out for WIN’s forthcoming indie market share study that will do exactly this.

Volatile currency markets played a role in shaping the 2016 picture, with Sony’s revenues at the original Yen values increasing by just 0.9% but 13% in US dollar terms. In original currency terms, Warner Music was the standout success of 2016, with revenues increasing 11%.

To be utterly clear, these numbers represent the recorded music revenue that each of these companies report to their shareholders and to the financial markets. This is market share based purely on publically stated, financially regulated and audited filings. No more, no less. In this specific context record label recorded market share is simple arithmetic: the record label’s reported recorded music revenue divided by total global recorded music.

Conclusions

The recorded music industry changed gear in 2016 and the outlook is positive also with revenue looks set to be on an upward trajectory over the next few years. However, successive quarterly growth is not guaranteed. Streaming will have to work extra hard to offset the impact of continued legacy format declines as the 18% download revenue decline in 2016 illustrates. Thus, the midterm outlook is as much about legacy format transition as it is streaming growth. If streaming can outrun tumbling download and CD revenues as those walls come crashing down, then good times are indeed here.