A paper was published yesterday which has suggested that music streaming services like Spotify will balloon to over 178 million users by 2015, Daniel Ashdown the author of the paper 'Mobile Music Hits The Right Note' reckons this massive increase will be driven by emerging markets like China and India.
“While streaming is the buzz word in developed markets, we should not forget that it is in markets where a combination of a large population, rising mobile subscriber penetration, and developing economies that represent a golden opportunity for mobile music services,” he added.
The Guardian published their usual health check of the music industry and it painted a grim picture for the current model for buying music. Stating global record sales fell by 1.5 billion last year and that piracy was to blame.
If the music industry is going to recover from its recent woes then it needs to embrace the new streaming method. Getting Spotify in multiple territories seem like and essential move, especially as they saw a massive increase in subscribers after it launched its Smartphone app.
Factor in the insatiable desire of emerging markets to get smartphones there does seem to a light at the end of the tunnel. All it needs now is concerted effort by the majors to get this infrastructure across the world and piracy will surely be diminished.
Global recorded music revenues fell 8.4% last year, about $1.45bn, to $15.9bn according to the annual Recording Industry in Numbers report by international music industry body the IFPI.
Overall physical sales, the term used in the industry for sales of products such as CDs, fell by 14.2% year on year to $10.4bn.
“The demand for new music seems as insatiable and diverse as ever, and record companies continue to meet it,” said Frances Moore, chief executive of the IFPI. “But they are operating at only a fraction of their potential because of a difficult environment dominated by piracy.”
We think that Spotify can be the saviour of the music world, if everyone used spotify then there would be no need to pirate music, as you can have access for free to 20 hours of music, or unlimited for a flat rate a month. They seem to listening to what the consumer really wants. They are constantly trying to add devices to their roster, so expect to find the service in TV’s, games consoles, cars and planes in the not so distant future.