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The Report: Knowledge for the Global Music Business PDF Free Download

The Report: Knowledge for the Global Music Business PDF free Download. Think more deeply and widely.

QUARTER 2 2021 • ISSUE 432

Q2 2021

THE INTERNATIONAL

FOCUS REPORT

• The Americas

• Europe

• Asia/Australasia

• Middle East and Africa

countries (in industry revenue terms) annually, with

smaller and emerging territories proled less frequently.

We hope that collecng them together gives you a

snapshot of some of the most interesng global music

trends from the last year, but we will connue publishing

the proles individually every fortnight, so keep an eye

on the bullen to make sure you don’t miss them!

Stuart Dredge

Editor,

Music Ally

Market proles are a well established part

of Music Ally’s editorial coverage...

... with journalist Ben Cardew exploring a dierent

country every fortnight to nd out the latest trends and

views on digital music.

They have been part of our quarterly editorial reports, as

well as featured in our daily news bullen, but now we

are trying something new: collecng them together in a

dedicated Music Ally Internaonal Focus report. This is

the rst.

The report includes our last year’s worth of market

proles in one place, organised by region.

Our strategy has always been to cover the biggest

thethereport ❱ Introduction

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

THE AMERICAS

 ARGENTINA

 BRAZIL

 CANADA

 CHILE

 MEXICO

 UNITED STATES

americasamericas

thethe

❱ Argentina

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 45.5m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $922.1bn

GDP per capita (PPP)... $20,900*

Internet users - home... 31.4m

Broadband connections... 8.5m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 19

Mobile phone subscriptions... 58.6m

Smartphone users... 31.2m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Argentina: statistics

THE ARGENTINIAN RECORDED MUSIC MARKET stands

as a stark reminder of how misleading gures can be, if not

considered in their context. Local Music Ally sources say

that recorded music revenue in Argenna was up 40.9%

in 2019, which sounds like a stellar performance unl

you discover that inaon in the same me period was a

shocking 53.8%, a fact that suggests a very sad state of

aairs for the local music business.

Indeed, Guillermo Castellani, general manager of Warner

Music Argenna, says that the Argennian music business

“took a hit in 2019” as inaon accelerated and recession

struck. GDP in Argenna shrank 2.5% in 2018 and 2.2% in

2019, according to the World Bank, with a 7.3% fall expected

in 2020 (see graph).

Nicolás Madoery, director of 432 Hertzios and country

manager Argenna of Dio Music, say that the Argennian

economy is “really bad”. “We have a very large inaon

process, while the dollar rises and salaries are not able to

match these increases, purchasing power is falling in general

lines for the middle class (and obviously the lows),” he explains.

“Fortunately, the new government is taking the situaon

seriously but we have come from four very bad years and the

situaon generated by the pandemic is not helping.”

Lile wonder, then, that Castellani, says 2020 is “proving

tough” for the music business, with COVID-19 parcularly

COVID-19 is particularly impacting the performance rights income

that makes up a signiﬁcant part of the Argentinian music industry

revenue... but streaming is serving as something of a silver lining.

impacng the performance rights income that make up such

a signicant part of Argennian music industry revenue.

Performance rights revenues made up more than half of total

recorded music income last year in Argenna, according to local

sources, compared to around 22% of Lan America as a whole.

Castellani says that performance rights income is expected

to fall by around a third this year, with most venues

remaining closed. “The Argenne government closed all

bars, hotels and restaurants on March 20” he says. “There’s

been some loosening, with bars and restaurants allowed to

serve takeaways, but they’re tending not to play music to

customers. Restricons have been loosened in some areas

where infecon rates are lower, but they’re prey marginal

to the performance rights market.”

However, he adds that performance rights are expected to

expand by more than 80% next year in Argenna. Another

posive is streaming, with more than 4.5m people in

Argenna now paying for a premium subscripon service, a

gure that Castellani calls “a really strong plaorm for future

growth when we emerge from the current COVID crisis”.

Castellani explains, “One silver lining of the current situaon

is that an increasing number of fans have started using

streaming services. As the audience has skewed a lile older,

we’ve seen catalogue tracks generang an increasing number

of streams. While many people have inially been using the

free ers of services, they’ve got into the streaming habit

and that’s great for the whole industry. The rate of streaming

growth has been slightly obscured by high inaon and

delays in payments by plaorms but the direcon of travel is

extremely posive.”

Mia Nygren, managing director for Lan America at Spofy,

says that the Argennian audiences “skew mobile, social

media and real-me informaon consumpon”, which she

sees as an advantage for the future when “innovaon around

fan and arst connecons will be key”.

What’s more, she says that quaranne has led to many

people across Lan American opening bank accounts, which

will work to the digital music industry’s advantage “Financial

inclusion, by the means of digital payments, was a challenge

for the digital economy to ourish,” she explains. “This trend

could posively aect the music industry.”

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Argentina

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Guillermo Castellani,

Warner Music Argentina

One silver lining of

the current situation

is that an increasing

number of fans have

started using streaming

services... the direction

of travel is extremely

positive.”

PAULO LONDRA

Real GDP (percentage change

from previous year)

Emerging markets

and developing

economies

World

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

Argenna

Lan America and

the Caribbean

Brazil

Region/country

Another posive for the Argennian music business is the

rise in exports. Castellani says that Argenna is once again

exporng music worldwide “aer 30 long years”. “We’ve seen

the emergence of a parcular Argenne take on Lan music,”

he explains.

“It’s not reggaeton, or a descendant of it, it’s a specic genre

inspired by American ‘80s hip-hop, early trap music and

2000s rappers.” Possibly the best known example of this is

Paulo Londra a young rapper / singer who featured on Ed

Sheeran’s “No. 6 Collaboraons Project”.

Madoery says that there has been “an explosion of new

projects in Argenna, linked to rap and rhythms such as

trap that very quickly went out to conquer other territories”.

“The greatest example is Paulo Londra,” he adds, “but also

Khea, Duki, or Wos managed to transcend borders with a

new Argenne musical sound and at an incredible speed

and today there is a very powerful scene and many new

arsts with internaonal

projecon.”

As such Castellani says he

is “opmisc that things will

be much beer in 2021,

as we get past the current

crisis”. “The success of

local urban music is set to

fuel wider industry growth

over the next few years,”

he concludes. “At Warner,

we’re working with excing

arsts such as Lil Killah

who are really connecng

with fans and starng to

generate big streaming

numbers. Our internaonal

acts, such as Coldplay

and Dua Lipa, are also

connuing to generate signicant tracon in Argenna.”

Nygren shares this opmism. “When looking at the health of

the Argennian music market there are mulple factors at

play that have to be taken into account: inaon, currency

depreciaon, overall economic health and the relaonship

between all of them, just to name a few,” she says. “We can

condently say that we see the Argennian music industry

connue to grow. While we don’t pretend to make any

macroeconomic projecons, we see posive signs that

support the idea of growth in the market following our 2019

metrics compared to the previous year. We also expect

growth to connue happening this year too.”

Source: World Bank

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Brazil

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 211.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $3.248 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $15,600

Internet users - total... 141.6m

Broadband connections... 31.2m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 15

Mobile phone subscriptions... 207m

Smartphone users... 141.5m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Brazil : statistics

BRAZIL’S MUSIC INDUSTRY LOOKS SET to record another

year of strong growth in 2020, despite the country being badly

hit by Covid-19. The last three years have seen the Brazilian

recorded music industry experience double-digit growth

overall, aer income declined in 2015 and 2016, as the country

experienced an economic recession that was the worst in its

history. In 2019, recorded music revenue in Brazil grew by

13.1% according to Pro-Música Brasil, with a 23% increase in

streaming income more than enough to compensate for drops

in other digital and physical income.

These rises have coincided with the Brazilian economy also

returning to growth, growing 1.3% in 2018 and 1.1% in 2019,

according to the IMF. The impact of Covid - which has been

responsible for almost 160,000 deaths in Brazil at me of

wring - is likely to send the Brazilian economy tumbling back

into recession, with the IMF predicng a 9.1% fall in 2020.

But Paulo Rosa, president of Pro-Música Brasil, says that the

Brazilian recorded music market is performing well in 2020,

with a year-on-year increase in revenues in the region of 30%

from January to September.

“Subscripons and ad-supported income derived from

interacve streaming of music in audio and video plaorms

have been the key factor to explain this good performance in

the three rst quarters of 2020,” he tells Music Ally.

At the same me, the Brazilian music industry - or at least the

Brazil’s digital music industry has made up for a slow start with years

of growth, a trend that should continue into 2021 and beyond

independent sector - remains very posive about its future

, according to new research from the Brazilian Associaon

of Independent Music (ABMI). The ABMI’s rst Brazilian

Independent Music Market Survey, published in October

2020, found that 89% of respondents are opmisc about the

future, while distributors and aggregators had noced “posive

economic eects” due to the pandemic.

“Although this research is focused on 2019, the respondents

were interviewed from May 2020 on, so the pandemic eects

were already around for several months.” ABMI president

Carlos Mills tells Music Ally. “This level of opmism was also a

surprise for us but I guess that most labels are condent about

the sustainability of the streaming model growth in the long

term. Here in Brazil we are far away from market saturaon in

terms of subscripons.”

Indeed, Mills views saturaon level for music streaming in

Brazil as around 70m subscribers - around one third of the

total populaon. Given that Brazil ended 2019 with 11.8m

subscribers to licensed music streaming services, that leaves

massive room for growth.

Mia Nygren, managing director for Lan America at Spofy,

says that streaming adopon has grown considerably over the

past few years in Lan America, including Brazil, as access to

devices and the internet grows “A recent study from Cec.

br (the Regional Centre for Studies on the Development

of the Informaon Society in Brazil), shows that three out

of four people living in Brazil can now access the internet.

Music streaming has connued to be the engine of growth as

Brazilians are adopng it as their preferred way to consume

music,” Nygren explains.

“We see this on IFPI reported revenues from 2019, which says

that LatAm connues to post the fastest growth rates in the

world (+18.9% y/y). It also states that Lan America was the

region with the highest proporon of revenues generated by

streaming worldwide.”

Marcos Swarovsky, South America Director of Deezer, says that

2019 “was a turning point for music streaming in Brazil”. “The

recent IFPI report clearly showed how digital music and paid

streaming connued to grow healthily in Brazil and across Lan

America,” he adds.

“Paid streaming accounted for almost three quarters of

recorded music revenues in the region and it is expected to

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Brazil

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Total revenue by format

77%

22%

Public performance

Streaming

Physical

Other

digital

0.6%

Streaming revenue

by format

71%

Audio subscriptions

21%

Video streams

income

Ad-supported

audio streaming

connue growing this year. Overall, Brazilians became more

aware of the benets of music streaming services, and started

adopng and using it more.”

As for the posive economic eects of the pandemic that the

AMBI’s survey idened, Mills says that Covid had an impact on

the listening habits of the local audience, especially in the rst

few months, but not on the general growth of the subscripon

model, which meant that overall revenue kept growing.

“Besides that there was an increment in the number of songs

uploaded daily through the distributors / aggregators,” he adds.

“We heard from our members a growth of up to 30% in terms

of daily uploads. New and rst me collaboraons between

arsts has also increased a lot during this period, generang

lots of interesng new content.”

Nygren explains that ecommerce has also grown in Brazil

during the pandemic, which should provide a boost for the

digital music industry in a country where, unl recently,

credit card use as limited.

“Ecommerce has grown considerably since Covid-19 hit

in Brazil,” Nygren explains. “According to ABComm (the

Brazilian Associaon of ecommerce), ecommerce and

online retail has grown 55% year over year in the rst ve

months of 2020 in Brazil - and this is parcularly due to the

pandemic. Based on what we have been able to observe

within Spofy, we have seen signicant growth in card

usage in the prepaid space.”

Swarovsky agrees. “Consumers have denitely goen more

used to online transacons this year,” he says. “Ecommerce

players have stated that the development they saw this

year is equivalent to what they expected in the next three

years. On our side, we saw a very high number of people

trying our premium oers via our special three months free

(try & buy) promoons, where the user has to input a valid

credit card number, which brought us growth of our paying

subscriber base this year.”

In its Market Survey the ABMI reported that Amazon

Music had passed Deezer in Brazil to become the second

DSP in number of subscribers, behind Spofy, which

has 61% of total subscribers and contributed 45% of all

Brazilian recorded music revenues in 2019. Spofy Lite,

which launched in Brazil in July 2019, is also said to have

contributed to the growth of streaming, thanks to its

economic use of data.

“Lan America is one of the most relevant markets for

Spofy Lite at a global level,” says Nygren. “Since its ocial

launch in July 2019, we have found that our users in Brazil

were the ones who streamed the most music using Lite, out

of all the 37 markets in which the app is available. Brazil is

followed by Mexico, India, Indonesia, and Argenna.”

Mills says there are several reasons for Amazon’s success. “The

rst one is that we do not have a very big Apple hardware user

base in the country, relavely speaking, so Apple Music who

usually is a strong contender in many markets, does not have

the same performance in Brazil,” he says.

“Secondly, YouTube Music is not converng their huge YouTube

base into subscribers as quickly as expected. And nally, the

Amazon Prime business model, that oers many services under

the same subscripon, has helped them a lot. Amazon Prime

has grown very rapidly in Brazil. But it is important to state that

we only considered Amazon Prime subscribers that eecvely

use the music service. The users that do not use the music

service were not included in our stascs.”

None of this, of course, should underplay the devastang eect

of Covid-19 on Brazil. But, for the country’s music industry,

at least, things are looking reasonably posive. “Although

Covid-19 has heavily hit Brazil, we are condent that the

recorded music industry at large has not been very aected as

much as other industries. We see people connue to consume

more and more music streaming,” Nygren concludes.

“Covid-19 has had other devastang consequences such

as the lack of tours and live music events and we now see

arsts with the challenge of building audiences in a world

without touring in which they now rely only on the internet.

“On a posive note, we know that LatAm audiences are

very engaged and connected on the internet, this is a great

opportunity for innovaon around fan and arst connecons.”

Source: Pro-Música Brasil

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Canada

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 37.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $1.774tn

GDP per capita (PPP)... $48,400

Internet users... 31.7m

Percent of population... 89.8%

Broadband connections... 14.4m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 39

Mobile phone subscriptions... 33.2m

Sources: CIA World Factbook

Canada: statistics

AS THE THIRD DECADE OF THE

21st CENTURY begins, it is tempng

to wonder if Canada’s – possibly rather

clichéd – reputaon for low-octane

stability has leaked into its music business.

As other digital music markets around the

world experience streaming-led leaps in

recorded music income, revenue in Canada

grew just 0.5% in 2018, a result that saw

China and Australia both overtake it in the

global rankings.

There are, however, extenuang

circumstances. Canada’s recorded music

income in 2017 was boosted by a one-

o performance rights payment and Music Canada claims

that, by normalising the revenue in 2017 to compare it to

2018, there was actually a 5.5% increase in recorded music

revenue in the country year-on-year. Meanwhile, in 2018

Canadian collecng society SOCAN paid out CAD $320m

(US$241.35m) to its members, an 8% year-on-year growth.

What’s more, according to Nielsen, 2019 saw total album

equivalent audio consumpon in Canada increase by

18.1%, driven by a 31.2% growth in on-demand audio song

streams. Going further into the Nielsen gures, we see a

Canadian music market behaving similarly to most major

Canada may have been initially slow to embrace streaming, but

recent years have seen the market make steady gains, even if

YouTube remains a constant source of irritation.

music industries. While audio song

streams were up, total physical

album sales in Canada declined by

23.3% to 10.4m copies in 2019 and

digital album sales fell 24.5% to

3.8m units.

SOCAN CEO Eric Bapste says

that the total number of music

subscribers in Canada most

recently reported to his society is

7.8m, or around 22% of the total

populaon.

“Remember, though, that SOCAN

works with total subscriber

numbers, which do not necessarily reect the total

number of individuals who have access to subscripons,”

he explains. Bapste adds that, from what SOCAN has

seen, there has been growth in the number of subscribers

recently “but just not as fast as in recent years”.

While it is sll too early to give gures for recorded music

income for 2019, Music Canada president and CEO Graham

Henderson says we should not expect a similar growth

in income to that seen in Nielsen’s consumpon gures.

“While this growth that we’ve connued to see over the

past few years is promising – and we expect that growth

to connue – it is important to note that revenues do not

directly track consumpon,” he says.

Perhaps more worrying for the Canadian music industry is

the fact that the Nielsen gures show that consumpon

of on-demand video songs grew faster last year (at 59.7%),

than on-demand audio song streams (31.2%), as the value

gap rears its ugly head once more.

“Despite the wide availability of subscripon music

plaorms, many consumers sll turn to user-upload

services like YouTube to listen to music,” Henderson says.

“Some 35% of respondents to a 2018 IFPI survey cited the

availability on YouTube of the music they want as a major

reason for not using paid audio subscripon services.”

Bapste took a similarly wary atude at SOCAN’s 2019

annual meeng, even as the society announced a growth

in payments. “The popularity of music streaming connues

52%

36%

Other video platforms Social media

YouTube

Piracy Live concerts

Purchased music Other

-35

-30

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

26.3

%24.4

-3.2

-30.1

-31.9

Other digital Streaming

Physical

Sync

Performance Rights

Annual growth by format 2019

were. “People have adjusted to

the new normal

and are now looking for some

entertainment,” he says.

Both he and Nygren, then,

remain posive for the future.

“We sll see incredible

potenal for growth in

Mexico as a market, given the

country’s young populaon

and increasing mobile access

to digital services,” Nygren

says. “We have come really far,

but there is a lot of room to

grow.”

Rodríguez adds, “I’m extremely

condent that the recorded

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ United States

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 335m

GDP (purchasing power parity)...

$20,524,945,000,000

GDP per capita (PPP)... $62,530

Mobile/cell phone subscriptions... 408.5m

Smartphone users... 280.6m

Internet users - total... 285.5m

Broadband connections... 110.6m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 people... 34

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

USA: statistics

WHILE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY oen looks to the USA for

the next musical trend, the country doesn’t get the same level

of appreciaon as a digital music pioneer, with observers

instead looking to the likes of Scandinavia and South Korea to

give us an idea of where digital consumpon trends are going.

As a result, the vast strides that the US has taken in the

shi towards streaming have got somewhat overlooked.

But they are remarkable nonetheless: research for MRC

Data / Billboard found that on-demand audio streaming

consumpon in the US was up 17% year-on-year in 2020,

while the most recent RIAA gures revealed that 75.5m

Americans subscribe to a music streaming service, up 15.1m

from 2019. This was the largest ever increase in subscriber

numbers in a single year.

Indeed, subscripon numbers in the US are growing at

a rate that is steadily increasing, from 10.8m in 2015 to

22.7m in 2016; 35.3m in 2017; 46.9m in 2018; 60.4m in

2019; and 75.5m in 2020. (Nelix, by contrast, had around

74m subscribers in the US in the last quarter of 2020.) This

trend suggests that music subscripon numbers in the US

are far from levelling o, as might be expected in what is a

relavely mature digital market.

Even more impressive is the fact that the RIAA gures quite

signicantly underesmate the amount of music subscribers

in the US by not including ‘limited-er’ subscripons like

The USA’s digital music market is one of the most vibrant globally

and shows little sign of slowing down, even if the price paid for

subscriptions is slowing

Pandora Plus or Amazon’s Prime Music and by counng

family plans as a single subscripon.

Recent research from Stasta claims that the number of

Amazon Music users in the US was expected to climb to

41.8m in 2021, from 30.4m in 2018. This gure includes

subscribers to “full” services, such as Amazon Music

Unlimited and Amazon Music HD (which are included in the

RIAA subscriber numbers), as well as Amazon Prime Music

(which isn't.) As such, it is hard to say what kind of numbers

these ‘limited-er’ services would add to the RIAA subscriber

total but it is likely to be in the millions.

Dr. Richard James Burgess, president and CEO of A2IM

(American Associaon of Independent Music), compares

the number of music streaming subscribers in the US to

the number of people who subscribe to subscripon video

on demand services. “There are well over 200m SVOD

subscripons in the US but SVOD subscribers subscribe to

more than one VOD service,” he says.

“The music industry uses a commodised model where

every service has basically the same selecon of music

as opposed to SVOD services, which have exclusive

content that drives mulple subscripons. There are about

123m households in the US, so with family plans etc.

and a common database of music, it seems unlikely that

the number of subscribers would exceed the number of

households, but there does appear to be room for growth

based on the current number of music subscribers.”

As subscriber numbers climb in the US, so too does streaming

revenue. The RIAA reported that streaming revenue in the

US grew 13.4% to $10.1bn in 2020. Breaking this down,

full-service paid subscripons brought in $7.0bn (up 14.6%

year-on-year); limited-er paid subscripons earned $724m (up

13.4%); digital and customised radio services were responsible

for $1.2bn (up 3.9%) and ad-supported on-demand services

brought in $1.2bn (up 16.8%).

The laer gure - while healthy enough - was impacted by

the Covid pandemic, which depressed the US ad market. The

previous three years had seen an average of 30% revenue

growth in ad-supported streaming year-on-year. With the

US economy and ad spending expected to rebound in 2021,

we can probably expect revenue gures for ad-supported

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ United States

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Dr Richard James Burgess,

A2IM

There are about 123m

households in the US,

so with family plans etc

and a common database

of music, it seems

unlikely that the number

of subscribers would

exceed the number of

households, but there

does appear to be room

for growth...

streaming to increase signicantly again this year. An RIAA

spokesperson said that, while they can’t make predicons

for 2021, “in the laer part of 2020 we already saw ad-

supported revenues returning to stronger growth”.

The spanner in the works is that, while the number of total

streaming subscribers in the US has connued to grow at

ever-increasing rates, the growth in streaming subscripon

revenue appears to be slowing, at least on a year-by-year

basis. According to the RIAA, income from full-service paid

subscripons grew 14.6% in 2020; but this was down from

a 27.5% increase year-on-year in 2019 and a 33.0% rise in

2018. (An RIAA spokesperson tells Music Ally that in the

second half of 2020 average revenue per subscripon was

higher than in the rst half.)

The annual growth in overall streaming revenue has also

slowed: streaming revenues grew by 43% in 2017, by 30.1%

in 2018, by 19.9% in 2019 and by 13.4% in 2020, according

to the RIAA. The fact that the average price people are paying

for music subscripons in the US is falling is problemac, given

that the music industry and DSPs alike are trying to edge up the

price of streaming subs. Spofy, for example, raised its prices in

Norway by 10% in May 2018.

“I am deeply concerned about the drop in subscripon

revenues coincident with the growth of subscripon

numbers,” says Burgess. “Music subscripons are

comparavely inexpensive and we need revenues to go up

to get the recorded music industry back to and above where

it was before the digital disrupon. An equivalent number

today would be about $22bn (by adjusted dollars) so we are

sll a long way short at around $12.2bn in the US for 2020.”

It’s also worth menoning that Spofy is signicantly

increasing its share of the podcast market in the US -

research rm eMarketer recently claimed that Spofy

overtook Apple for podcast listening in the US in 2020 -

which means that the company’s subscribers in the US have

other demands on their listening me, beyond music.

This is far from a crisis, though. Burgess says that, anecdotally,

he has heard that the rst few months of 2021 have been

posive for the recorded music industry in the US, although

labels that are dependent on touring are suering. “I am

opmisc that we will connue to see growth,” he concludes.

An RIAA spokesperson adds, “We were very pleased to achieve

another year of strong revenue growth in digital last year -

especially given the challenging environment, and we see lots

of opportunity there. Also, it’s important that digital helps fans

connect with their favourite arsts, and oers a crucial revenue

source for arsts at a me when so many arsts and other

music professionals face real nancial challenges given the

Covid pandemic’s devastang impact on the live sector.”

US music industry streaming revenues

in $ billions

US music industry revenues

in $ billions

7.3bn

8.9bn

10.1bn

2018 2019 2020

$6.5bn

$9.7bn

$7.4bn

$11.1bn

$8bn

$12.2bn

Retail

Wholesale

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

EUROPE

 BELGIUM

 FRANCE

 GERMANY

 HUNGARY

 NETHERLANDS

 POLAND

 RUSSIA

europeeurope

❱ Belgium

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 11.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $529.2 billion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $46,600

Internet users - total... 10.3m

Broadband connections... 4.5m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 39

Mobile phone subscriptions... 11.4m

Smartphone users... 9.0m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Belgium: statistics

BELGIUM IS SLOWLY CATCHING UP to its neighbours in

the adopon of music streaming, with industry execuves

predicng that the country will reach a total of 2.5m

subscribers over the next few years.

Belgian recorded music body BEA Music reported that in

2019 music streaming income rose by 31% in Belgium,

accounng for 60% of the country’s total turnover, up

from 35% in 2017. This strong performance helped overall

recorded music revenue to climb 8% to €78.32m ($98.39m).

Patrick Guns, chairman of BEA Music and general manager

of Universal Music Belgium, said that the result “shows that

Belgians can nd their way more and more easily towards

streaming services such as Spofy, Apple Music, Deezer

among others”, while predicng further gains. “If we look at

other comparable music markets, we are convinced that this

growth trend will connue,” he said. “There is clearly even

more potenal, a promising development for the future.”

Charloe De Mets, head of markeng at Warner Music

Benelux, agrees. “There’s been an exponenal growth

in paid subscripon streaming over the last two years in

Belgium, as more fans use these plaorms to connect with

music,” she says. “We’ve seen some really strong local arsts

break through and I think their success stories have helped

aract people to streaming services.”

Belgium may not be a digital music powerhouse but

music streaming is in the ascendance there, after

DSPs improved their service in the country.

She says that around 1.5m people in Belgium currently

subscribe to a music streaming service - not bad for a

country of 11.7m people, although not spectacular either

- predicng that this can grow to 2.5m over the next few

years.

Naturally, this will depend on the development of both

digital infrastructure and data plans. De Mets says that

the telco market in Belgium is sll not as compeve as

in neighbouring countries like the Netherlands, while the

Digital Belgium strategy, launched back in 2016 to achieve

economic growth through digital innovaon, has yet to

impact the market.

“Most phones don’t yet support 5G and the upgrade to it

will be less impacul than the leap from 3G to 4G when it

comes to streaming,” she adds. “Consumers here face higher

bills and lower bandwidth than they do across the border

and we’ve not yet seen a successful telco streaming bundle

move the needle.”

DSPs, however, have improved their service in Belgium.

When we looked at the market in 2016, Michel Van Buyten,

then co-managing director of Sony Music Benelux, said that

there had been “not much focus on the Belgian territory

by streaming services themselves: limited markeng

investments or other iniaves”.

De Mets says this situaon has improved considerably.

“Digital services have now woken up to the opportunies

here in Belgium,” she explains. “We’re now able to have

direct conversaons with the teams at leading DSPs about

what music will perform strongly here - it’s a collaborave

dialogue. The fact that they’ve launched local playlists and

invested in D2C acvaons is really posive news for the

Belgian digital music market.

“But there are sll challenges to overcome, we’re improving

the opportunies available for local arsts but internaonal

repertoire is sll omnipresent on these services, so it can be

hard for Belgian talent to cut through.”

As a result, she believes Belgium is slowly catching up to

the world in terms of streaming. “Belgium has been slower

than its neighbours to adopt paid streaming,” De Mets

says. “French music fans were early to adopt Deezer, while

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Belgium

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Charlotte De Mets,

Warner Music Benelux

There’s been an

exponential growth

in paid subscription

streaming... We’ve

seen really strong local

artists break through

and I think their success

stories have helped

attract people to

streaming services...”

ROMÈO ELVIS

consumers in The

Netherlands were

among the fastest

to adopt Spofy,

oen o the back

of very successful

telco deals. But

we’re now growing

faster in terms of the

percentage of streaming users who pay to subscribe, so we’re

denitely catching up.”

Despite this, physical music sales remain relavely strong

in Belgium, making up 32% of total turnover in 2019 aer

revenue fell 14% year-on-year, a decline that De Mets says

was less than some analysts were predicng.

All this, of course, must be seen through the lens of Covid,

with Belgium apparently home to one of the highest

coronavirus death rates globally and the country’s economy

expected to shrink 8.3% in 2020. As expected, the impact

of Covid has been devastang on Belgium’s live industry

and has sharply accelerated the decline in physical sales,

according to De Mets. Streaming, however, has largely been

unaected, with changes in listening paerns leaving the

overall volume of streams relavely stable.

Before the full impact of Covid became clear, 2020 was

shaping up to be another year of growth for the Belgian

music industry, with paid streaming in ascendance and

physical music sales declining gradually. The global

pandemic may have radically altered the global music

market but De Mets says she expects the Belgian market to

recover in 2021, as restricons ease.

Revenue by format in million €

25.38

–14.08%

46.77

+30.64%

5.91

–18.6%

Physical

Download

Streaming

29.54

35.8

7.26

2019 2018

Physical

Download

Streaming

Source: Belgian Entertainment

Associaon

ANGÈLE

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ France

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 67.8m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $2.856 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $44,100

Mobile/cell phone subscriptions... 70.42m

Smartphone users... 47.2m

Internet users - total... 57.2m

Broadband connections... 29.1m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 people... 43

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

France : statistics

THE FACT THAT FRANCE’S recorded music industry managed

to grow its revenue - albeit by just 0.1% - in 2020, in the

face of the global pandemic should, perhaps, be cause for

celebraon. 2020 was a hard year for the global economy and

any growth is to be welcomed.

SNEP, the French music industry body, called the results “proof

of the solidity of [the French music industry’s] economic model,

which has managed to stay the course despite a context

completely disrupted by the health crisis” and it is hard to argue

too much with that.

The problem comes when France’s growth is compared to

other music markets who have all been in the same boat: the

German recorded music market grew 9% in 2020, while the

UK was up by 2.2%. France’s rather stac result also comes at a

tricky me for the country’s recorded music industry, which has

been making the transion to digital at a rather sluggish pace.

In 2018 digital music revenue in France overtook that of

physical for the rst me – some six years aer the UK – with

the recorded music market growing 1.8% overall. The following

year recorded music revenue in France grew 5.4% to €772m,

with streaming accounng for 57% of trade revenue. To go

from this to 0.1% growth – whatever the circumstances – is

disappoinng. SNEP said that the French music market was

weighed down in 2020 by “a decline in adversing revenue from

tradional media sources, which caused neighbouring rights

France’s recorded music industry may have grown ever so slightly in

2020 but - in comparison with its neighbours - it might seem a little

too static for comfort.

revenues to drop signicantly by 19%”, while revenue from

physical music fell 20%. (As in neighbouring Germany, vinyl sales

in France grew last year, despite the pandemic, up 10%.)

Alexandre Lasch, head of SNEP, explains that the share of

physical revenues and neighbouring rights in the French market

remains much more signicant than in many other markets.

“Yet it is precisely these segments that have been most aected

by the health crisis,” he adds. “But the violence of this crisis

conrmed the robustness of our new business model: revenues

from streaming and in parcular from subscripon streaming

connued to grow rapidly.”

As Lasch suggests, digital performed well in France in 2020.

Streaming income grew by 20.6% to €453m, with the number

of paid music subscripons growing from 7.2m in 2019 to

8.7m in 2020. The number of people using premium streaming

services in France, meanwhile, is around 12m, including family

plans, while another 7.4m people in France use free services,

taking the total number of streaming to 19.4m, or slightly under

a third of the total populaon.

SNEP said streaming “has become the main means of listening

to music among under-35s” in France, adding, “As well as this,

for the rst me ever in France, subscripon-based streaming

alone generated more than half of total annual turnover.”

As to how high subscriber numbers can go, Lasch says France

sll has room for improvement. “These [subscripon] gures

equate to a penetraon rate of premium subscripons of

around 13% in France,” he says. “This is sll far behind that

of the US, for instance, where the number of subscripons

corresponds to 23% of the populaon. So we sll have a lot of

room for improvement and the number of subscripons could

double in the next few years.”

Streaming indicators

Paid subscripon audio streaming (€m)

0 100 200 300 400

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

Total audio streaming revenues (€m)

bn Volumes of streams (bn)

351

407

285

331

241

266

197

239

167

197

Source: GIK

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ France

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Among this uncertainty, one clear sign of light for the French

recorded music business was the incredible success of

domesc talent. In 2020, for the third year in a row, 19 of the

top 20 albums of the year were produced in France and sung

in French, accounng for 80% of 2020’s best-selling albums,

according to SNEP (AC/DC were the excepon).

Going back further, for the past six years there have been

between 17 and 19 French producon in the annual top

20 albums, the kind of result that would make many music

industries seethe with envy. Leading the way was French rap

and R&B, which made up half of the top 200 albums.

Can France export this domesc success? Lasch believes so.

“French export successes are mulplying,” he says. “David

Guea is sll the boss, with the equivalent of 200 new diamond

single cercaons in 2020 for his repertoire outside France.

But new stories are being wrien for many other arsts: Aya

Nakamura conrms abroad, while Lous and The Yakuza, Polo

& Pan, Antoine Chambe, Bosh and many others are becoming

the new standard-bearers of music made in France. And for the

rst me, cercaons of rap and urban music arsts abroad

are now equal to those of electro arsts. This is a sign that the

French language is no longer a barrier to export.”

Lasch congratulated the French music industry for connuing

to invest in new talent, despite the dicult circumstances. “In

these uncertain mes the French music industry has connued

to take risks - in 2020 more than €300m was invested in new

signings, producons, recordings, markeng and in all the other

means of promoon that have had to be adapted to comply

with restricons imposed by the global health situaon.”

In this respect, the French music industry is fortunate to have a

sympathec government, that realises the importances of the

arts. As well as the quota for local music on the radio, France

is also home to the crédit d’impôt en faveur de la producon

phonographique - a tax credit that allows music companies to

oset up to 30% of producon costs each year.

Closing o its results, SNEP said that “in these precarious,

unprecedented mes, the sustainability and quality of the

tax credit system and the exceponal aid oered to recorded

music companies is more vital than ever”.

Overall, France’s recorded music industry remains on a fairly

even keel despite the unique demands of 2020. Speaking

to Music Ally in October 2020, Jean-Noël Tronc, CEO of

Sacem, the French Society of Authors, Composers and Music

Publishers, predicted that it would be “dicult to return to a

normal funconing of the market in 2021: there is a risk of

trac jams with new releases planned for 2020 postponed;

tours that promote records will not necessarily take place under

normal condions with the same audience numbers.”

The country’s results for 2021, then, will be very eagerly

watched, to see whether France can return to the digital-

led growth of 2019, or the market remains at. But Lasch

remains opmisc. “Subscripon streaming is more than ever

at the heart of the growth model: in this exceponal period,

it has proved its solidity in the face of the most brutal and

unpredictable hazards,” he concludes.

“So there is reason for opmism, but not a blissful one - the

industry’s results are to the credit of the music producers who

have connued their relentless human and nancial eorts to

develop careers and make arsts shine in the domesc market

and beyond.”

French export

successes are

multiplying. David

Guetta is still the boss, with

the equivalent of 200 new

diamond single certiﬁcations

in 2020 for his repertoire

outside France. But new

stories are being written for

many other artists...”

Alexandre Lasch,

SNEP

Digital-based turnover comparison

(2013/2020)

73%

14%

53%

28%

16%

Paid subscripon streaming

Digital download Ringtones

Ad-supported streaming

Physical

2013 2020

Digital: 1/4 of

2013 revenues

Digital: 3/4 of

2020 revenues

Source: SNEP

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

23.04.2021 •

❱ Germany

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 79.8m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $4.482 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $53,919

Mobile/cell phone subscriptions... 103.1m

Internet users - total... 72.7m

Broadband connections... 34.2m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 people... 42

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Germany : statistics

GERMANY’S RELATIVELY SLOW TRANSITION towards

a streaming-led music market has been accelerated by the

eects of the pandemic, with streaming booming and CD

sales - for so long the cornerstone of the German music

business - down sharply.

According to recorded music industry body BVMI, audio

streaming revenue in Germany grew 24.6% in 2020 to

€1.13bn, or 63.4% of total income. The most recent gures for

the number of streaming subscribers in Germany come from

March 2020, when they numbered 11m, up 2m from 2019,

but BVMI CEO Dr Florian Drücke says there is sll room for

growth, with greatest potenal among the older market.

Income from CDs, by contrast, fell 18% in 2020 and - while

the CD remains the second biggest source of income for the

German recorded music industry - its 21.6% share is now

around one third of that of streaming.

The sharp decline in CD income compares to a 19.9% decline

in 2018 and a 10.5% drop in 2019. Drücke says that the

pandemic clearly aected CD sales but explains that he expects

further decline in the future.

“The strongest eect [of the pandemic] is a further shi from

brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce,” he says. “In general of

course the crisis has a devastang eect for the wider music

economy, in the heart of it the arsts and also our industry is hit.”

Germany’s music industry has held up well in the face of the

pandemic, although some ill effects are yet to come in one of the

world’s biggest music markets.

Slightly unexpectedly, as CD sales fell sharply, income from

vinyl sales soared, up 24.7% in 2020 to make up 5.5% of the

total market, with downloads taking up fourth place on 4.2%

aer a 24.8% decline.

Drücke says that the most likely explanaon for this “seems

to me that the hapc experience worked as an emoonal

compensaon for the lack of live concerts, the desire to

support arsts in those hard mes and also a number of

compellingly aracve vinyl fan boxes”.

Overall, the German recorded music industry grew 9% last

year to €1.79bn, beang the 8.2% increase in 2019. Drücke

describes this as “very good news for now”. But his overall tone

is more measured – Drücke says that fans have “nolens volens

increasingly supplied themselves with music in the digital

space” using a Lan term that essenally means “whether they

like it or not”.

What’s more, he says that some of the eect of the pandemic

on recorded music revenue has yet to be seen. “Besides the

eects on physical sales and the challenges for producon and

releases, we have to bear in mind that some of the negave

eects such as the lockdown will be seen with a delay,” he says.

“This is because the licensing income e.g. for broadcasng in

bars, clubs etc. is distributed by the collecng sociees in the

consequent year.”

The other lingering headache is the age-old problem of

YouTube. “The increasing digital share of currently 71.5% [of

the total German recorded music market] also necessarily

means a signicantly increasing urgency with regard to resilient

framework condions in the network,” he says. “Equally

important for us is a beer understanding of the digital playing

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Germany

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

eld that does not ignore the economic realies of our industry.

“The German implementaon of the Copyright Direcve must

not be allowed to damage the delicate licensing architecture

for music companies and arsts - because the European

compromise wants the opposite: creators and their partners

should beer parcipate in the revenues of user upload

plaorms like YouTube.”

Video streaming, he adds, is one of the most popular channels

for music consumpon in Germany but contributes less than

4% of total revenue. “The most recent gures for Germany

are from a long-term study on music consumpon we are

commissioning together with a number of other industry

associaons,” he says. “Among the free streaming oers,

YouTube is the number two channel (41%) aer Spofy (62%)

for people to listen to music via free streaming oers - far

ahead of other oers.”

For all this, Drücke remains largely posive. He doesn’t want to

comment on revenue gures for the rst two months of 2021

before BVMI publishes its half-yearly gures but concedes that

they “don’t look bad”.

The strongest effect [of the

pandemic] is a further shift

from brick-and-mortar retail

to e-commerce... Besides

the effects on physical

sales and the challenges for

production and releases, we

have to bear in mind that

some of the negative effects

such as the lockdown will be

seen with a delay”

Dr Florian Drücke,

BVMI

Source: BVMI

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

24.05.2021 •

❱ Hungary

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 9.6m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $316 billion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $32,434

Internet users - total... 7.43m

Broadband connections... 3.19m

Smartphone users... 6.93m

Sources: UN / Worldometers; IMF; Stasta

Hungary: statistics

WITH A POPULATION OF SLIGHTLY UNDER 10 million and

a language impenetrable to many outsiders, it is perhaps

no surprise that Hungary is not exactly top of global music

industry thinking. But it should be creeping up the agenda,

at the very least: in 2019 Hungary was one of the fastest

growing music markets in the world, with overall recorded

music revenue increasing by more than 20%, according to

local sources.

Perhaps more surprisingly, growth occurred in both physical

and digital music revenue. According to Hungarian recorded

music associaon MAHASZ, digital music revenue grew

37.6% in 2019, driven by a 41% hike in streaming, while

physical revenue increased 1.53% in the same me period.

Jehan Paumero, head of distribuon for Hungary, Romania

and Balkans at Believe, says that Hungary is “sll an

emerging market”. “Digital plaorms came here late, iTunes

launched in 2013, so basically nine years aer its launch in

Western Europe’s key territories,” he says.

This, he explains, le a large space for piracy. “Download

plaorms users in Western Europe have been converted

to streaming plaorms users as soon as streaming came

to their markets,” he adds. “But Hungary never really used

download plaorms, so it took much more me to convert

piracy to streaming consumpon, especially because most

of the plaorms haven’t even marketed themselves since

they entered the market.”

Hungary came late to digital music but is rapidly making up for lost time,

transforming it into one of Europe’s fastest growing music markets

The result of all this is that Hungary is now experiencing

the kind of streaming-led rise in music revenue that many

Western European countries experienced a few years ago,

with the picture muddled by the popularity of YouTube.

“Hungary (like every other Central and Eastern European

country) has historically been a huge YouTube consumer,”

Paumero explains. “The conversion from piracy to streaming

has gone through YouTube (you can see here tracks reaching

20M views and 100k streams). Then people realised slowly

that listening to music on streaming plaorms is much more

praccal than storing gigabytes of music on their computer

or watching videos on their phones.”

Paumero says that Hungary has around 750,000 premium

streaming subscribers today, helped by the fact that a

Premium subscripon costs the equivalent of around

€5, half the cost of many Western European countries.

“Although many of these users are part of a family

subscripon, this is already a decent number and gives

hopes for the future,” Paumero explains.

Streaming in Hungary is dominated by Spofy, with Apple

Music and YouTube Music their biggest competors, and

YouTube Music growing rapidly. “Historically,” Paumero

adds, “Deezer has been the only streaming service to

have an editor locally, in Hungary but also in other smaller

Central European territories, and they sll have a decent

number of users. Hungary used to have relevant local music

services, but none of them really survived the Spofy wave.”

Hungary, Paumero says, cannot really be compared to

other Eastern European countries, with all having their

own individual idiosyncrasies. One of Hungary’s quirks is a

strong physical music market, fuelled by “a deal between a

local gas company and major independent arsts, who sell

their albums for a ridiculous price (1000 HUF, less than

3 euros) in all their service staons”, according to

Paumero. The rise in physical music income, then, is not

so straighorward: CD sales dropped by 2% in Hungary in

2019, while vinyl sales rose 14%.

Pre-pandemic Hungary was looking forward to another

strong year of growth in recorded music income, with signs

in the rst quarter of 2020 very promising.

The eect of the pandemic on the recorded music business

has been very varied: established arsts, who base their

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Hungary

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Revenue by format

in Hungarian Forint (US$1 = 297 HUF)

107.2m

–15.95%

2.86bn

+41.02%

Downloads

Streaming

2.02bn

127.5m

2019

Downloads

Streaming

2018

Total 2019: 2.962bn HUF Total 2018: 2.152bn HUF

500m

1.0bn

1.5bn

2.0bn

2.5bn

3.0bn

Mobile Subscrip. Ad-based Video Total

phone audio audio streaming streaming

content streaming streaming revenue

5.73m

1.89bn

280.1m

683.3m

2.86bn

2019 commercial value

in Hungarian Forint

release schedule on concerts and tours, inially delayed

their new releases in the hope that they might be able

to tour in support of them, with many of them only now

geng around to pung out their new material.

Many young arsts, on the other hand, have

managed to use the situaon to their benet.

“We’ve seen Gen Z arsts reaching amazing

numbers, reaching more easily than ever

youngsters stuck at home, releasing hits once a

month,” says Paumero. “So the pandemic seems

to have had a posive eect on this kind of

arsts, concentrang 100% on producing and

releasing music.”

As such, Paumero remains posive for the

future of the Hungarian market, despite the

dicult mes. “DSPs are taking the region

more seriously and launched local editorial

teams recently, which opens new horizons to

arsts as they see their eorts rewarded by

playlist inclusions and markeng campaigns,” he

concludes.

“Arsts play a major role in the digital music

industry by driving their audience to the digital

services and we can feel more than ever that

they are taking this part seriously and applying

the advices we have been teaching them for

years now, contribung to the growth of digital

music consumpon.”

Hungary never really

used download

platforms, so it took

much more time to convert

piracy to streaming

consumption, especially

because most of the

platforms haven’t even

marketed themselves

since they entered

the market...”

Jehan Paumero,

Believe

LOCAL ARTISTS KOWALSKY & THE VEGA

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Netherlands

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 17.3m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $924.4 billion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $53,900

Internet users - total... 16.2m

Broadband connections... 7.4m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 42

Mobile phone subscriptions... 21.1m

Smartphone users... 14.96m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Netherlands : statistics

THE DUTCH MUSIC INDUSTRY IS EXPECTED to grow in

2020 despite the impact of Covid-19, thanks to a tech-

savvy populaon and one of the most advanced streaming

markets in the world.

In 2019, the Dutch music industry registered its strongest

growth for ve tears, with turnover up 13.2% to €206.8m

($244.2m) according to music industry associaon NVPI.

Streaming revenue increased 23% year-on-year to €161.7m

($190.9m), accounng for almost 80% of total revenue, up

from 50% in 2015.

“We’re sll seeing strong streaming growth in

the Netherlands,” says Warner Music Benelux

president Marn Jessurun. “The proporon of

Dutch people streaming has doubled in the last

eight years and around 60% of them have a

premium subscripon. People are also spending

more me listening to music, which is a hugely

posive sign of engagement.”

Speaking to Music Ally, the NVPI says it expects

the Dutch music industry to show overall

growth in 2020, nong the country’s tech-savvy

populaon and access to fast internet.

“More than half the populaon listens to Spofy

already (as of June 2020),” Koen de Groot, a

business intelligence analyst at NVPI, and Anne

de Jong, general manager of NVPI, explain.

A tech-savvy population that has wholeheartedly embraced streaming

has insulated the Dutch music industry from the worst effects of Covid

“Since 2013, that amount has doubled… In 2019, Dutch

people used Spofy more than people in the UK, France

and Germany.”

In the rst three months of 2020, before the global impact

of Covid-19 became apparent, the Dutch music industry

was showing healthy growth across the board. The country’s

“intelligent lockdown” in response to the virus, in which

around 80% of the populaon reduced their outdoor acvity,

clearly had a devastang eect on live music and physical

retail. Physical music sales in the Netherlands fell 10.7% in

2019 and NVPI says there was an addional 10% decline in

the rst nine months of the year.

Streaming did compensate for this but

“not in a big way” according to the

NVPI. “Yes, there is growth but not a

lot more than previous years,” de Groot

and de Jong say. “The actual increase is

now YTD 5% less than last year. It is not

like video streaming services (Nelix,

Disney+ and Amazon Prime) which

show a very big jump in revenue.”

That’s not to say that there isn’t

room for growth. Pre-pandemic

research from the NVPI shows that

85% of young adults (18-22) in the

Netherlands stream music, a number

that drops to less than 25% among

the 45+ age group. “So, there is sll

a huge potenal for persuading older consumers to stream

music,” de Groot and de Jong say. “But like we said before,

Dutch consumers (young and old) are quite tech-savvy, so

we think it will only be a maer of me before streaming

will also be picked up by the older generaons.”

Jessurun agrees that there is sll huge untapped potenal

when it comes to persuading older people in the

Netherlands to engage with music streaming. “Anecdotally,

I believe more older people have been signing up this

year and I’m sure more will connue to do so,” he says.

“That trend will boost the overall industry and I suspect

parcularly smulate more spins of catalogue music, which

is why we’re invesng more in promong that repertoire.”

Streaming has also been closely linked to the rise of Dutch

KRISS KROSS AMSTERDAM

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Netherlands

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

hip hop in its home country, with domesc talent generally

performing well. Both top album and top track of 2019 in the

Netherlands were by Dutch talent, courtesy of Frenna and

Kris Kross Amsterdam, with hip hop acts like Boef, Lil´ Kleine

and Dopebwoy also guring in the lists.

“The Dutch hip-hop scene is very big in the Netherlands,”

say de Groot and de Jong. “And because this especially

appeals to the younger

demographic, streaming

plays a very big role.

Domesc repertoire is

roughly a quarter of the

total streaming market.”

Language barriers means

Dutch hip hop generally

struggles to travel. The

NVPI says Dutch rap

exports to neighbouring

Belgium in growing

numbers but dance music

remains the country’s

main musical export.

What’s more, exports

are growing, valued at

€216m ($255m) in 2018

(the most recent year

for which gures are

available), up from €201m ($237.3m) in 2017.

“I’m super opmisc about the future of the Dutch

music industry,” Jessurun concludes. “We’ve just had two

amazing releases - with Dopebwoy and Nick & Simon - from

very dierent genres and both have done extremely well,

even in the current circumstances. There’s sll a hunger for

great new music, as well as the familiar classics, and that’s

driving engagement with streaming. I just can’t wait unl

we’re able to go to gigs and fesvals to enjoy seeing our

arsts play live.”

More than half the

population listens to Spotify

already. Since 2013, that

amount has doubled… In

2019, Dutch people used

Spotify more than people

in the UK, France and

Germany...”

Koen de Groot,

NVPI

Total revenue 2018-19

(in millions €)

Downloads Streaming Mobile CDs Vinyl Total

100

150

200

250

-21.3%

+23%

-18.6%

-15.7%

-1.3%

2019 2018

year-on-year change

+13.2%

Revenue share 2019

7.4%

12.2%

78.2%

2.0%

0.2%

Downloads

Streaming

Mobile

Vinyl

CDs

Source: NVPI

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Poland

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 38.3m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $1.126 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $29,600

Internet users - total... 29.0m

Broadband connections... 6.1m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 16

Mobile phone subscriptions... 51.1m

Smartphone users... 21.9m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Poland : statistics

IF YOU WANT AN EXAMPLE of a bullet-proof economy,

you could do a lot worse than Poland, the only EU member

state to avoid recession during the nancial crisis of 2008

and 2009. The same could be said for its music industry,

which has experienced years of steady growth as it slowly

transions towards digital. The two, of course, go hand in

hand: while Poland may be very polically divided in 2020,

Poles have, on the whole, felt the benets of these years

of economic growth, which has le them with money for

luxuries, such as music.

“Polish people are nancially doing well, they have never had

a quality of life like this and as high a purchasing power parity

as they do now,” explains Magdalena Jensen, co-founder and

managing partner, Chimes Agency. “A lot of that has to do with

the government. They are very populist and they kind of hand

out money, for families for example. That means you don’t just

have the money to make ends meet, you might have money to

spend on luxuries.”

A level of disposable income, combined with a love for

collecng physical goods, helps to explain the strength of the

physical music market in Poland. Physical music revenue in

Poland grew as recently as 2017 and, although it has slipped

back recently, it remains a signicant percentage of total sales.

“If you look at our physical market it’s very strong,” says Tony

Duckworth, general manager of PIAS Poland and Eastern

Europe. “If you were to take out digital from the world

Digital music revenue in Poland was higher than physical for the ﬁrst

time ever in the ﬁrst half of 2020 and streaming has helped local talent

– already big in Poland – to explode

markets, Poland would be in the top 10.”

That might sound like potenally bad news, given the impact

of Covid-19 on music retail (and therefore physical music

sales) around the world. But Duckworth says that PIAS has

seen physical sales hold up steady thanks to a concerted

eort to push CD and vinyl sales online, even as Empik,

a book chain that also sells physical music, was forced to

temporarily close stores.

For all that, streaming is on the rise in Poland, with revenue up

around 26% in 2019, as overall recorded music revenue

grew 3.4%, according to local sources. Jensen says that Polish

people are not, by their nature, early adopters but she expects

to see another rise in streaming use as a result of the pandemic.

Indeed, 2020 could be a landmark year for Poland. Marek

Włodarczyk, CEO of Independent Digital, says that in the

rst half of 2020 digital revenues were higher than physical

for the rst me in the history of the Polish market.

“According to [Polish industry body] ZPAV data for the rst

half of 2020, physical revenues amounted to 66.8 million

zl ($17.7m), which is a decrease of 22.8% compared to last

year. Digital revenues amounted to 92.5 million zl ($24.5m),

which is an increase of 26.3%.”

What’s more, Duckworth says that the Polish digital music

industry is doing a very good job in moving users from

freemium to premium accounts. “I really believe that the

streaming services have had an impact in developing our

market, opening up inuences to arsts and opening up

music to the people on the street,” says Duckworth. “It has

killed bootlegging, too, which used to be rife.”

Total subscriber numbers for streaming services in Poland

are believed to be somewhere north of 6m - impressive for

a country of 38.3m people - although Jensen says many of

these may be inacve.

“I would queson how many of those are acve users,” she

says. “We have services like Tidal that have been given away

with telcos. So you might get 2m people with a Tidal app on

the phone.”

Perhaps the most fundamental impact of streaming in Poland

has been in the rise of domesc hip hop. Poland has long

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Poland

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

been a market that favours local talent: in 2018 84% of the

most popular arsts in the Polish charts came from Poland,

according to a 2019 report commissioned by the Ministry

of Culture and Naonal Heritage, while hip hop has a long

history in the country.

But streaming has helped this to explode, making stars out

of arsts like Taco Hemingway, while legendary hip hop label

Def Jam opened an oce in Poland last year. According to

Włodarczyk, in the current Top 50 of Spofy Poland (at me of

wring), Polish hip-hop arsts occupy 32 posions, including

nine of the top ten. Jensen says, “Hip hop is the genre in

streaming. You don’t get hip hop on the radio and radio is sll

very important in Poland.”

Duckworth explains that hip

hop was always a very digital

genre, inially consumed

on YouTube. (Polish hip

hop accounted for 80% of

YouTube views among the

25 most popular songs in

Poland in 2018, according to

the Ministry of Culture and

Naonal Heritage.)

“But streaming has

helped the sector to develop in a rather more organised

environment. “The fact is that hip hop came from YouTube

and the arsts were already big there,” Duckworth says. “But

streaming is much more mainstream from the point of view

that it is much more user friendly and curated.”

Whether Polish hip hop will export

is another maer. Jensen says that

the strength of Poland’s domesc

market means many arsts aren’t

really concerned by selling outside

their home turf. “The thing with

Polish music is, the domesc

market is very, very healthy,” she

says. “You can make a good living

here, so there is no need to travel

abroad. And small bands don’t

have the funds to travel abroad.

The Zloty is very weak against the

Euro. So you need to do well to get

money to tour outside of Poland.

But if you’re doing well here, why

would you choose to go and tour

small venues in other countries?”

Of course, Poland is not without its problems. The country

is facing its rst recession in three decades with a projected

decline of 4.% in GDP in 2020 according to the IMF, as a

result of Covid. On a more macro level, Duckworth says

the Polish music industry could do a lot more to sustain the

market: the Polish chart, for example, is very much industry

facing, with most consumers unaware of who is at number

one, while the country’s main music award ceremony, the

Fryderyk awards, doesn’t drive sales in the same way that the

Brits or Grammys do.

But, with strong domesc sales, streaming on the rise

and Polish consumers’ notable loyalty

towards musicians, Poland seems well

set to ride out the troubles of 2020 and

connue to grow.

“We look to the future with opmism,”

Włodarczyk concludes. “In Poland,

the segment of independent labels

is constantly growing, and they are

quickly adapng to economic and social

condions and phenomena that were

dicult to predict (such as Covid-19).

What’s more, the indies have very

commied fans who idenfy with labels

and arsts. 90% of the most creave ideas in Polish music

come from independent arsts and labels. If the Polish

economy connues to grow, the auent society will choose

paid digital services.

Digital market

sales channels

Mobile phone downloads

93%

Streaming

100

150

200

250

300

65%

-8%

35%

+23.3%

100%

+1%

Digital sales Physical sales

Total sales

Music sales in Poland 2018

Online downloads

Figures in black box represent market share and

year-on-year change

TACO HEMINGWAY

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Russia

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 141.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $4.016 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $27,900

Internet users - total... 116m

Broadband connections... 32.1m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 23

Mobile phone subscriptions... 229.4m

Smartphone users... 106.2m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Russia : statistics

IN WHAT WAS GENERALLY A STRONG year for the

global music industry, Russia provided one of the standout

performances of 2019, with recorded music revenue up

50.3% according to local sources. Now, despite the impact

of Covid, the market looks set to grow again in 2020, with

execuves predicng strong growth for 2021.

Russia’s explosive growth in 2019 was, according to

Warner Music Russia MD Alexander Blinov, driven by

“a further acceleraon of the take-up of streaming by

music fans”. Streaming income in Russia was said to have

grown by almost 76% last year, which Blinov aributes to a

number of reasons, from a strong release schedule to an-

piracy legislaon.

“The government’s an-piracy legislaon is hing the

supply of unlicensed music and helping migrate people to

legal services that pay rights holders,” he tells Music Ally.

“Streaming services have oered aracve introductory

bundle deals that helped ence people to sign-up, with

fans then enjoying the experience, scking around and

educang others about how the model works.”

The market also beneted from the high-prole launch of

Spofy in July 2020, a move that Spofy called “our most

successful new market launch to date”. Expanding on this,

the Spofy Russia & CIS press oce tells Music Ally that

in three months in Russia, the company achieved results

After a standout performance in 2019, the Russian recorded

music industry looks set to continue its path towards being

a global top 10 market.

that it had planned to reach in one year in terms of paid

subscripons. “What is also signicant,” they add, “Russia

landed in our top 25 markets worldwide in terms of MAU

and paid subscribers.”

Spofy, as is typical, did not reveal any user numbers for

Russia, although the press oce noted that around 80% of

people who listen to music in Russia use streaming services,

compared to a global gure of 60%.

“Our goal was not just about launching another service but

bringing an experience that adds value to the industry,” the

Spofy press oce says. “For the Russian market we’ve

created almost 100 - and growing - editorially curated local

playlists across some of the most popular genres, regularly

updated by our in-house editors. We saw an amazing

response to the arsts shout-out video that was recorded

by both global and local arsts. In the rst three days we

were on the top of Google Store and App Store.”

What’s more, the press oce says that Spofy’s Russian

launch “encourages compeon and this means the quality

of streaming services in Russia’s highly compeve market

will be growing”.

Russia, to be fair, already has considerable oer in terms of

streaming, with SberZvuk, formed from streaming service

Zvuk aer it was acquired by Sberbank, the country’s

biggest naonal bank, the latest new entrant on the scene.

Konstann Sidorkov, director of strategic communicaons

at vKontakte, the social media plaorm that launched

its own streaming service in May 2017, revealed at the

NY:LON Connect conference in January 2020 that his

company’s music streaming service had 2.5 million paid

subscribers, which he said was “similar to Apple Music in

Russia and also to Yandex [Music]”.

“In general [all the Russian services] we have about eight

to nine million paying subscribers now,” he added. (It should

be noted that esmates for the number of paid subscribers

to music streaming services in Russian tend to uctuate

quite wildly.)

For a country of some 142m people - and 116m internet

users - that sll leaves considerable room for growth, as

Spofy acknowledges. “By 2030, Russia is expected to

become the tenth largest music market in the world,” the

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

28 11.05.2021 •

❱ Russia

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

BOULEVARD DEPO

Spofy Russia & CIS press oce tells

Music Ally. “At the same me, the

number of mobile Internet users

according to Mediascope totals 85m

people, which is only 57% of the

whole Russian populaon, and this

is a great potenal for expanding

the audience of streaming services

and millions of paid subscribers in

Russia over the next few years.”

Russia, in 2019, was the world’s 17th biggest

music market and expanding rapidly, which makes tenth

posion by 2030 seem fairly easily achievable. Blinov

says that at the start of 2020, the Russian recorded music

industry was on track for another year of growth. Then, of

course, Covid hit and while the Russian live music business

has been understandably aected, Blinov says recorded

music “is sll performing reasonably well, all things

considered”.

“Local arsts became even more acve in creang new

music, and we’ve had best-selling releases from Boulevard

Depo, Cream Soda and Feduk,” he says. “I think it’s great

that we’re able to connue to connect arsts and fans, and

drive income for arsts, during this dicult me. I think

we’ll see overall industry growth this year – not as much as

we would have predicted in January, but we’re happy that

there’s sll growth in the market.”

The hope now, he adds, is “that things can get back to

normal soon and we’re projecng strong industry

growth in 2021”.

Blinov concludes, “I’m very opmisc about the

future of the digital music industry here in Russia.

We’re very well posioned for huge growth over

the medium term.”

It’s great we’re able to...

drive income for artists,

during this difﬁcult time.

I think we’ll see overall

industry growth this year

– not as much as we would

have predicted in January,

but we’re happy that there’s

still growth in the

market...”

Alexander Blinov,

Warner Music Russia

Overview of world economic outlook

projections (percentage change)

China

USA

2018 2019 2020* 2021*

* = projected

-12

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

Euro Area

World

Russia

Region/country

Source:

IMF World

Economic

Outlook Update

FEDUK

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

11.05.2021 •

ASIA

AUSTRALASIA

 AUSTRALIA

 CHINA

 INDIA

 INDONESIA

 JAPAN

 SINGAPORE

 SOUTH KOREA

asia/asia/

australasiaaustralasia

❱ Australia

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 25.5m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $1.248 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $50,400

Internet users - total... 22.3m

Broadband connections... 7.6m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 31

Mobile phone subscriptions... 28.3m

Smartphone users... 20.3m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta / Data Reporal

Australia : statistics

DEAN ORMSTON

AFTER YEARS OF GROWTH, the Australian recorded music

market looks set to level o in 2020 as a result of Covid-19.

Australian recorded music associaon ARIA announced in

April 2020 that wholesale gures for the country’s recorded

music business were up for the h straight year in 2019, up

5.5% to AUD $555m ($394m).

Streaming made up more than 18% of the Australian music

market in 2019, up 18% year-on-year, with the biggest

increases coming from people over 35.

ARIA made a comparison with 2010, when the Australian

recorded music industry was worth AUD $384m ($272.6m),

with physical sales represenng 73% of the market.

Back in April, however, the inuence of the pandemic was

already becoming clear. ARIA CEO Dan Rosen tells Music

Ally that pre-Covid the industry was on track to connue

its increasing revenues from streaming with slight fall in

physical sales. In announcing the results, however, Rosen

warned that 2020 would “be a year like no other due to the

impact of Covid-19”.

And so it has proved. In October 2020, Australasian

collecng society APRA AMCOS released its Year In Review

2019 - 20, which covers the Australian nancial year of July

1 2019 to June 30 2020. It revealed that its Group Revenue

for the year was AUS $474.5m ($336.9m), up 0.6% on 2019

-19 but down AUD $14.4m ($10.2m) on the budgeted gure

Digital business has held up well and international revenue

reached an all-time high in Australia despite inevitable levelling

off as a result of Covid-19

of AUD $488.9m ($347.1m). For Australia alone, APRA

AMCOS said that Group Revenue for the 2019 - 20 nancial

year was AUD $419.4m ($297.8m), up from AUD $ 417.4m

($296.3m) from 2018-19.

Public performance income was - as you might expect -

down sharply in the APRA AMCOS results, while revenue

from digital sources (audio streaming, video-on-demand,

UGC / social media) was up 17.4%. Internaonal income

was also up, thanks to the success of Australian acts such as

Tame Impala, Sia and Tones And I.

“When Covid hit globally in March this year, we predicted

a potenal drop in revenue of AUD $20m-$30m [about

$14m to $21m), given all live music events ceased overnight

and the dramac ow-on impacts to adversing and

consumer spend and the closure of small businesses,” says

APRA AMCOS chief execuve Dean Ormston. “However,

our digital business held up well and internaonal revenue

reached an all-me high of AUD $54.4m ($38.6m).”

Ormston says that most of this revenue has come from “our

booming mul-territory digital licensing and processing

hub in Asia Pacic and beyond”, with key partners including

Universal Music Publishing, Swedish society STIM, Concord

and “a range of other well-known music publishing names”.

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Australia

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Dan Rosen, ARIA

The digital side of the

music business is more

important than ever.

Covid has pushed up

digital consumption in

all areas of our lives and

we have to make sure

music continues to play

a big part in gaining

people’s attention...”

Locally, he says that subscriber growth has connued this

year “although not as the same levels as previously as the

market matures” adding that Australian and New Zealand

customers are “ahead of the curve” as strong early adopters

of streaming plaorms.

There are now around 6.65m people who subscribe to audio

streaming services in Australia, up from about 6m in 2019,

although Ormston says the impact of Covid-19 in this regard

has not been as strong as in many other territories.

Rosen adds, “The digital side of the music business is more

important than ever. Covid has pushed up digital consumpon

in all areas of our lives and we have to make sure music

connues to play a big part in gaining people’s aenon.”

In its results, APRA AMCOS warns that the full impact of the

pandemic will not be reected in its gures unl full-year

2021, given the ming of internaonal earnings. So when

will things be back to normal?

“Everyone globally wants to know the answer to that

queson!” says Ormston. “The live music sector will not

recover unl venues can re-open at capacity and state and

internaonal borders re-open. So it’s hard to imagine a full

recovery, let alone growth, within a two year period.”

All the same, he remains opmisc about the future for

Australia and New Zealand. “We need to maintain a clear

vision on the opportunity of Australian / NZ music export -

including both Australian / NZ arsts, and Australian / NZ

songwriters co-wring for internaonal arsts - it’s all about

exporng the IP in the song!” he says.

“As an industry the opportunity is seng our sites on becoming

a net exporter of music. And how do we make that happen?

We connue reinforcing and advocang to governments that

the contemporary music industry is an excing, locally invested

and globally facing industry and that it makes great cultural,

social and economic sense for cross government porolio

policy and nancial investment.”

Revenue growth

(A$ millions)

2010

2010 2017 2018 2019

100

200

300

400

500

600

Digital downloads CD albums

Streaming

Other digital Other physical

Vinyl albums

Total

384.0m

Total

468.7m

Total

526.1m

Total

555.0m

2017

2018

2019

Digital downloads

CD albums

Streaming

Other digital

Other physical

Vinyl albums

Source: ARIA

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

03.06.2021 •

❱ China

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 1.4bn

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $25.36tn

GDP per capita (PPP)... $18,200

Internet users... 904m

Broadband connections... 407.39m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 29

Mobile phone subscriptions... 1.65bn

Smartphone users... 781.7m

Sources: CIA World Factbook/South China Morning Post/Stasta

China: statistics

CHINA’S GROWING IMPORTANCE as a digital music

market is perhaps only matched by a fundamental lack of

understanding that exists about the country. That’s not

necessarily the music industry’s fault: it’s extremely dicult

to get your head around a country of 1.4bn people whose

polical structure is very dierent to what many people

working in the tradional music industry power bases are

familiar with. Indeed, China’s surge in polical and economic

power over the last two decades has le many global

industries discombobulated.

It doesn’t help either that stascs about China’s recorded

music industry are generally seen as unreliable. In his 2019

Midem keynote speech, Mathew Daniel, VP of internaonal

at Chinese streaming service NetEase Cloud Music,

warned that IFPI numbers for China were largely based on

advances; that means they may not necessarily reect the

music industry’s actual performance there. Current IFPI

numbers for China, according to Music Ally sources, suggest

that the country’s recorded music industry grew 16% in

2019 and it is the seventh biggest market globally with a

market size of $590.9m.

A recent report by the Chinese government, however, put

the value of China’s digital music industry in 2018 at RMB

61.24bn, or around $8.76bn, a vast dierence from the IFPI

gures, even if we allow that the Chinese report includes

areas like mobile karaoke that the IFPI does not track.

A lack of reliable ﬁgures makes China a difﬁcult music market to

understand. Even so, its digital potential is vast.

Both reports do, at least, agree that China’s digital music

business is growing, with the 2019 China Music Industry

Development Report claiming that China’s digital music

business increased by 5.5% from 2017 to 2018 while the

number of digital music users exceeded 550m, a jump of

5.1% year-on-year.

What, exactly, these digital music users are doing is sll not

enrely clear. Streaming, as you might imagine, dominates

digital music consumpon in China. The divide, however,

between ad-supported and paid users is opaque at best.

The IFPI, for example, reports that revenue from ad-

supported streaming is greater than that of subscripon

in China – a claim that was met with some surprise by

some local Music Ally sources. “For most of the plaorms,

subscripon income is sll the largest contributor in the

digital music market,” says a representave of NetEase

Cloud Music.

Simon Robson, president, Asia Region, Warner Music, says

that the ad-supported model isn’t really set up to make money

in China but is instead designed to drive trac to the service.

“Within China, the GDP is so dierent from city to city that

it becomes dicult to set standard pricing per month for a

product,” he says. “So despite the ad-supported model not

making money at the moment, it will connue to be used to

drive trac. I’m hopeful that we’ll start to see people in China

migrate to paid subscripon in the near future.”

He explains that there are currently 60m paid subscribers

in China – a number that is the second highest globally

overall but sll represents under 5% of the country’s total

populaon. “That number has more than doubled in the last

two years, which is a really posive sign and shows that the

public are starng to embrace paid subscripon services,”

he adds.

NetEase itself was reported to have around 600m

registered (rather than acve) users at the end of 2018,

making it the main rival to Tencent Music’s three streaming

services in China – Kugou Music, QQ Music and Kuwo

Music. In May 2020, Tencent said that it had 657m monthly

acve users across its three services, of which 42.7m were

paying, up 50.4% year-on-year.

Announcing the results, Tencent also revealed strong

growth in subscripon revenues, which went from RMB

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ China

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

710m ($101.5m) in the rst quarter of 2019 to RMB

1.21bn ($ 173.1m) in Q1 2020. This is an encouraging

result, although it is worth bearing in mind that two-thirds

of Tencent Music’s revenues in the quarter sll came from

‘social entertainment’ (mostly karaoke and live video).

If you needed further proof of China’s singularity in the

global music market, the NetEase representave menons

the importance of Shuzi Zhuanji. This roughly translates

as “digital albums”, although this doesn’t tell the full story.

Shuzi Zhuanji are albums on digital music plaorms that

even subscribers have to pay extra to access, either to

stream or to download. According to one source, releasing

an album like this is something of a badge of pride for arsts

and fans, serving as proof of their popularity.

The albums also work as a form of bragging rights for fans,

according to Tinko Georgiev, VP of internaonal business

for industry services company Kanjian Music. “The idea

behind this is that you could buy mulple copies of an

album and they have gamicaon techniques,” he says.

“Tencent is integrated with [hugely popular messaging

app] WeChat. So if you share on WeChat that you have

purchased 100 copies of, let’s say, the new Taylor Swi

album, then you can gi it to 99 people. They have

leaderboards – with the most dedicated fans showing o on

them. It is a very popular thing in China, a very interesng

way of bragging about how much money you have and

showing that you support the arst for real.” (Taylor Swi,

incidentally, is a pernent example: the Shuzi Zhuanji

release of her most recent album, Folklore, reportedly

made $1.2m in three days on NetEase Cloud Music aer its

release in July 2020.)

adversements on the back of all of China Airlines’ ight

ckets. If the total sales hit 500k, NetEase will make it to

big LED screen in Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan. If the sales

achieve 700k, the ad for the album will be on Beijing Metro

for one week. If it goes to a million, the video teaser will

displayed for a week in Times Square in New York.”

WeChat – which is vast in China and lesser known in

the West – is one of many plaorms that foreign music

industries will have to get to grips with if they want to make

progress in China.

Xiaoman Zou, co-founder of Kanjian Music, told Music

Ally’s NY:LON Connect conference in January 2020, “China

basically lives inside WeChat now. We talk to the DSPs on

WeChat, we x problems for the releases on WeChat, too.

Of course we use email, but if you want to do business in

China, you have to use WeChat.”

Sina Weibo – oen described as “China’s Twier” – is

another key plaorm as well as Douyin/TikTok and Tencent

QQ. Then there is NetEase Music’s own Fan Connect, which

allows fans to comment publicly on albums and tracks. US

singer Lauv, for example, recently took part in a fan Q&A on

Fan Connect.

However, Mathew Daniel told Midem that many

internaonal arsts don’t concentrate as much as they

should on Chinese social media. “Internaonal arsts also

need to put in the eort to make their music relevant,” he

said. “There’s no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twier. One

of the things I always ask labels is, ‘Would you do a release

without Facebook, Instagram or Twier?’ And they say,

Value of China’s digital

music industry

(in billion RMB)

Year-on-year growth (%)

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

10%

12%

14%

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

11.5%

1.4%

6.3%

9.6%

5.5%

Kanjian internaonal business

specialist Yutong Situ gives an

example of how this gamicaon

can work. “For the digital album New

World by Chenyu Hua, a local top-

level pop singer, fans who purchased

the album enter a draw to win

autographed merchandise. Another

gamicaon funcon is that, since on

NetEase Music [as on Tencent Music

Entertainment’s DSPs] customers

are allowed and encouraged to buy

mulple digital copies [plus] there is a

‘unlocking oine promoon’ secon.”

Situ adds, “If the total digital sales hit

270k digital copies, NetEase will run

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ China

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Xiaoman Zou, Kanjian Music

China basically lives

inside WeChat now...

we ﬁx problems for the

releases on WeChat, too.

Of course we use email,

but if you want to do

business in China, you

have to use WeChat.....

the market, such as Latvian producer Tobu, who works with

Kanjian directly.

“Arsts who are making money from their success in the

West and have not yet invested in developing their prole

in mainland China need to do it in the next three-to-ve

years,” he says. “Otherwise they will be le out for good. At

the same me, this levels the eld for more arsts like Tobu

to make a name for themselves.”

Chinese arsts looking to export their music internaonally

are in a similar posion of limited success, with the likes of

Kris Wu, Lay Zhang and Jane Zhang making some inroads

here. Robson, meanwhile, says that Warner China act Tia

Ray “has huge potenal to succeed internaonally”.

Ulmately, whatever the actual size of the Chinese

music industry, there is lile doubt that it is going to get

signicantly bigger as China itself connues to grow in

stature and wealth. China’s response to COVID-19 has

meant that the country’s economy has been quick to

recover from the impact of the pandemic, with the Chinese

economy growing 3.2% in Q2 2020 while many other

countries were experiencing historic slumps.

Robson believes that we could see China in the top three

markets globally within the next ve years “and potenally

even sooner”.

“The populaon is so big and we’re seeing streaming and

music consumpon grow each day,” he concludes. “It’s a

very excing me for the Chinese music market.”

‘Never!’ And I say, ‘That’s exactly what you do in China!’”

Georgiev says, “There is a fundamental dierence in the way

these arsts build their careers in mainland China and they

try to apply it outside. It doesn’t work. And it is the same

the other way around. Western acts try to apply the same

techniques they use outside to China. And it doesn’t work

again.”

It is perhaps for this reason that Western acts aren’t making

the same impact in China that they are in many other

markets. That’s not to say that there aren’t successes. Robson

notes that three or four years ago foreign music represented

about 11% or 12% of the Chinese market and this has now

increased to around 17% or 18%, largely thanks to streaming.

Meanwhile, in 2019, Taylor Swi’s’ Lover shied 1m album

equivalent units in its rst week of release, breaking the

record for rst-week consumpon of an album by a foreign

act in China. All the same, these successes sll tend to be

overshadowed by local arsts.

A NetEase Music representave says that Lover sold

400,000 copies on NetEase Cloud Music in its rst week,

on the way to sales of 700,000 copies on the plaorm. They

added, “Though these sales numbers are impressive, on

NetEase Cloud Music some top Chinese singers perform

even beer. For example, the album New World by Chinese

pop singer-songwriter Hua Chenyu achieved sales of a

million copies, resulng in RMB 20m [$2.9m] revenue

within three days of release.”

Daniel tells Music Ally that the appete for foreign music

in China “is obviously growing”. “From our perspecve, a

large poron of our music listeners are the post-1990s

generaons who have grown up in the globalisaon era,” he

says.

“They are more open to new cultural inuences and diverse

music genres, with wider access to more foreign music than at

any other point in history. Streaming has denitely increased

the consumpon of internaonal music, with our users having

access to more than 30m songs.” However, he cauons that

beyond accessibility, internaonal labels “have to increase the

contextual relevance to feed this appete amongst users, so

there is sll work to be done”.

Georgiev believes that there is a relavely small window for

established Western acts to break China, before their place

is taken by new acts who have made more of an eort in

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 1.3bn

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $9.47n

GDP per capita (PPP)... $7,200

Smartphone users... 500m+

Broadband susbcribers... 698.2m

Mobile phone subscriptions... 1.14bn

Sources: CIA World Factbook , TRAI, Counterpoint Research

India: statistics

VIKRAM MEHRA

AS IN MOST COUNTRIES, the naonwide lockdowns

imposed in India to contain the spread of Covid-19 have had

severe eects on the music industry there over the past six

months.

That’s not because India is a strong market for physical sales:

at $132.8m, streaming accounted for 73.2% of the $181.4m

Indian recorded music market in 2019.

Instead, it’s because the majority of the music consumed

on Indian streaming services is from lm soundtracks, the

releases of which have largely been on hold since mid-March.

Surprisingly, the recorded music industry has been resilient.

Listenership on audio streaming services grew by 40% year-

on-year in the rst half of 2020, according to trade body the

Indian Music Industry (IMI).

The impact of the lockdown has been buered by the

exponenal increase in the naonwide popularity of “non-

lm” music, a nebulous and problemac term used to refer

mainly to pop music created outside of the canvas of a lm.

“Dierent labels are taking dierent strategies,” says Vikram

Mehra, the managing director of the country’s oldest record

label Saregama, and chairman of the IMI. “But there’s a clear-

cut understanding in all of us right now that we need to also

focus on non-lm music.”

The Indian music industry is encouraged by the growth

of ‘non-ﬁlm’ music, but is keen to drive more paid

subscriptions

“Saregama wants to focus more on the regional [language]

aspect because of the inherent strengths we have in our

catalogue. We are moving into Gujara, Punjabi, Bhojpuri,

and Tamil in a very big fashion. Other labels are pung a lot

of money into Hindi originals. [For the rst] me [since the

1990s], one is seeing enough aenon from the label side

and enough interest from the customer side for non-lm

music.”

In India, Universal Music pivoted to completely to non-

lm music a few years ago. At Sony Music, which has a

presence across mulple genres and languages, there’s been

a concerted eort to build a market for non-lm content in

places where there isn’t one such as “the south [of India],

which is predominantly soundtrack-driven”, says managing

director Rajat Kakar.

To this end, the label launched the ‘Madras Gig’ series of Tamil

pop singles in 2018 and encouraged by its success, followed it

up with the ‘Hyderabad Gig’ set of Telugu pop releases earlier

this year.

Saregama and Sony’s focus on regional music is a considered

decision. The segment now makes up 35% of the plays on

Gaana, which claims to have 185 million monthly acve users

(MAUs), making it the naon’s most popular audio-streaming

service.

“Regional music has grown 26 mes in the last three-three

and a half years,” says CEO Prashan Agarwal. “The reasons are

two-fold: as the penetraon of the app deepens across the

country into Tier II and Tier III cies, there’s more and more

exposure being given to consumers of the language that they

prefer. Secondly, the quality of content has started improving

across all the regional languages.”

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

The rise of non-lm and regional music is best seen

on YouTube, for which India is the largest and

fastest growing market – more than 265 million

MAUs in April 2019, and likely considerably more

now.

Of the 18 songs to have topped YouTube’s Top

Music Videos chart for India, which launched in

September 2019, 13 have been non-lm tracks: ve

are in Hindi, four in Punjabi, two in Bhojpuri and two in

Haryanvi.

It’s a trend that’s being mirrored across audio streaming

plaorms, from Gaana’s chief rivals, JioSaavn and Wynk

Music, which are owned respecvely by telcos Jio and Airtel

and also claim over 100 million MAUs, to global services like

Spofy, and ByteDance’s new entrant Resso.

As a result, it’s not just labels that are invesng in “non-lm”

content. Gaana began releasing Gaana Originals, a series of

exclusives it curates in collaboraon with labels, in 2017, the

same year JioSaavn launched Arst Originals, an in-house

label for independent arsts.

As the user bases increase and become more diverse, DSPs

are discovering that there’s an audience for every kind of

music in India, where the sheer numbers – be it in terms of

overall populaon or smartphone users – have made the

country one of the most aracve markets on the globe.

The naon is home to at least nine audio streaming services

including Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music and Hungama

Music, with a tenth, Denmark’s Moodagent, expected to

launch soon.

The IMI esmates these services collecvely have more

than 300 million MAUs, but the proporon of those people

who pay for subscripons has remained a low single-digit

percentage for years.

It’s this stasc that makes India’s recorded music industry,

ranked No.15 in the IFPI’s 2019 Global Music Report,

parcularly vulnerable during mes of economic downturn.

So, while streaming is on the upswing as most of the

country works from home, the knock-on eect of the fall in

adversing revenue during the second quarter, despite an

improvement in the third quarter, is expected to substanally

aect labels’ total revenues for the year.

This could mean that in value terms, India

– where ad-supported streams generated

54% of the monies accumulated from

audio streams in 2019 – could end

2020 with a dip in overall revenue.

Depending on how long the ongoing

pandemic lasts, the IMI could miss its

goal of becoming one of the top ten music

markets in the world by 2022.

“That’s the problem of an ad-supported model,” says Blaise

Fernandes, the president and CEO of the IMI. “When the

economy tanks, the adversing budget is the rst to take a hit.”

Execuves across the industry echo each other when they say

that streaming services now need to move from “playing the

valuaon game” to a business model where the majority of

people pay for music.

Sony Music’s Kakar is of the opinion that pung “compelling

content”, such as “some new releases” and “experiences

such as arst interacons behind a paywall,” will be key to

converng ad-supported consumers.

He also recommends containing the quanty of tracks

available to free users as well as liming free trial periods to

no more than three months.

RAJAT KAKAR

BLAISE FERNANDES

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

“We’re really working with our partners to make sure people

start paying in this eco-system so we get to know what they

actually want to consume rather than them playing the rst

available playlist that comes on the deck,” he says.

There is some debate about the price point at which Indian

consumers will make the switch, however.

“You need to [make it] extremely aordable and get large

numbers,” says Mehra. “That’s the India dynamic. I think Rs19-

Rs29 per month is a very decent value at

which you can get customers.”

Kakar, on the other hand, doesn’t believe

the current rates are the issue. “The cost

of one CD was Rs199-Rs299. Consumer

research back [then showed that] people

bought at least four to ve CDs a year.

Video OTT services [such as Nelix and

Amazon Prime] have shown that people

are willing to put money on the table.”

India’s exisng prices are already some

of the lowest in the world, starng at

Rs99 [about $1.34] for a month on the

majority of services including Gaana,

for which income from subscripons

accounts for a lile over a third of

revenues.

“We think the sweet [spot] for the

Indian market is Rs399 (for an annual

subscripon), which is about Rs1.20 per

day,” says Agarwal. The service is already

experimenng with a ered payment structure, which the

industry believes will be crucial for a price-sensive market

like India’s.

“We have three pillars: ad-free, HD quality and unlimited

downloads,” says Agarwal. “If you only want one of the three

features, you get a dierent price point.

“We’ve also launched language packs, where [for example] if

you’re listening [mostly] to Punjabi [music], you [can] get the

three features for only that language and a separate price.”

The results, he says, are encouraging. Subscripons grew 2.5

mes in the rst half of this year as compared to the rst six

months of 2019.

However, Agarwal points out, “for content to be put behind

a paywall, the enre eco-system has to work towards that,

which means not just audio but video as well.”

That much of lm-crazy India prefers to “watch music” as

opposed to “listen to it” is well documented not only in the

massive viewership of YouTube but also that of the recently

banned TikTok, for which India was the biggest market.

The dozens of new short video sharing apps that have

emerged over the last few months

as potenal contenders for its crown

are the new bugbear of the music

industry, as a number of them have

yet to procure licensing deals from

labels.

T-Series has reportedly sent legal

noces to half-a-dozen such apps

including Bolo Indya, Josh, Mitron,

Roposo, Snack Video; MX Takakak,

which shares the same parent

company as Gaana, the Times

Group; and Triller, which recently

entered into a strategic partnership

with JioSaavn.

According to Fernandes, the

proliferaon of such unlicensed

services is among the key areas of

concern that need xing.

Others include “a relook” at the

provision of the Indian Copyright

Act that pertains to intermediary liability and some nality

from the judiciary that “internet broadcasng” organisaons

are not entled to a statutory licence under the controversial

Secon 31D of the Act, as determined in the April 2019 ruling

by the Bombay High Court in the Tips Industries vs. Wynk

Music case.

While a “deeper penetraon of public performance licensing”

and “expanding the base of synchronisaon”, which currently

account for 10.2% and 5.9% of the total revenue, are

potenal areas for growth, both are likely to be hindered by

the ongoing lockdown.

During a panel at the All About Music conference in August,

Ameet Daa, legal consul for the Indian Performing Rights

PRASHAN AGARWAL

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Vikram Mehra,

Saregama

Saregama wants to focus

The Report: Knowledge for the Global Music Business PDF Free Download

The Report: Knowledge for the Global Music Business PDF free Download. Think more deeply and widely.

Uploaded by smith335 on 3/9/2026

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100%

QUARTER 2 2021 • ISSUE 432

Q2 2021

THE INTERNATIONAL

FOCUS REPORT

• The Americas

• Europe

• Asia/Australasia

• Middle East and Africa

countries (in industry revenue terms) annually, with

smaller and emerging territories proled less frequently.

We hope that collecng them together gives you a

snapshot of some of the most interesng global music

trends from the last year, but we will connue publishing

the proles individually every fortnight, so keep an eye

on the bullen to make sure you don’t miss them!

Stuart Dredge

Editor,

Music Ally

Market proles are a well established part

of Music Ally’s editorial coverage...

... with journalist Ben Cardew exploring a dierent

country every fortnight to nd out the latest trends and

views on digital music.

They have been part of our quarterly editorial reports, as

well as featured in our daily news bullen, but now we

are trying something new: collecng them together in a

dedicated Music Ally Internaonal Focus report. This is

the rst.

The report includes our last year’s worth of market

proles in one place, organised by region.

Our strategy has always been to cover the biggest

thethereport ❱ Introduction

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

THE AMERICAS

 ARGENTINA

 BRAZIL

 CANADA

 CHILE

 MEXICO

 UNITED STATES

americasamericas

thethe

❱ Argentina

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 45.5m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $922.1bn

GDP per capita (PPP)... $20,900*

Internet users - home... 31.4m

Broadband connections... 8.5m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 19

Mobile phone subscriptions... 58.6m

Smartphone users... 31.2m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Argentina: statistics

THE ARGENTINIAN RECORDED MUSIC MARKET stands

as a stark reminder of how misleading gures can be, if not

considered in their context. Local Music Ally sources say

that recorded music revenue in Argenna was up 40.9%

in 2019, which sounds like a stellar performance unl

you discover that inaon in the same me period was a

shocking 53.8%, a fact that suggests a very sad state of

aairs for the local music business.

Indeed, Guillermo Castellani, general manager of Warner

Music Argenna, says that the Argennian music business

“took a hit in 2019” as inaon accelerated and recession

struck. GDP in Argenna shrank 2.5% in 2018 and 2.2% in

2019, according to the World Bank, with a 7.3% fall expected

in 2020 (see graph).

Nicolás Madoery, director of 432 Hertzios and country

manager Argenna of Dio Music, say that the Argennian

economy is “really bad”. “We have a very large inaon

process, while the dollar rises and salaries are not able to

match these increases, purchasing power is falling in general

lines for the middle class (and obviously the lows),” he explains.

“Fortunately, the new government is taking the situaon

seriously but we have come from four very bad years and the

situaon generated by the pandemic is not helping.”

Lile wonder, then, that Castellani, says 2020 is “proving

tough” for the music business, with COVID-19 parcularly

COVID-19 is particularly impacting the performance rights income

that makes up a signiﬁcant part of the Argentinian music industry

revenue... but streaming is serving as something of a silver lining.

impacng the performance rights income that make up such

a signicant part of Argennian music industry revenue.

Performance rights revenues made up more than half of total

recorded music income last year in Argenna, according to local

sources, compared to around 22% of Lan America as a whole.

Castellani says that performance rights income is expected

to fall by around a third this year, with most venues

remaining closed. “The Argenne government closed all

bars, hotels and restaurants on March 20” he says. “There’s

been some loosening, with bars and restaurants allowed to

serve takeaways, but they’re tending not to play music to

customers. Restricons have been loosened in some areas

where infecon rates are lower, but they’re prey marginal

to the performance rights market.”

However, he adds that performance rights are expected to

expand by more than 80% next year in Argenna. Another

posive is streaming, with more than 4.5m people in

Argenna now paying for a premium subscripon service, a

gure that Castellani calls “a really strong plaorm for future

growth when we emerge from the current COVID crisis”.

Castellani explains, “One silver lining of the current situaon

is that an increasing number of fans have started using

streaming services. As the audience has skewed a lile older,

we’ve seen catalogue tracks generang an increasing number

of streams. While many people have inially been using the

free ers of services, they’ve got into the streaming habit

and that’s great for the whole industry. The rate of streaming

growth has been slightly obscured by high inaon and

delays in payments by plaorms but the direcon of travel is

extremely posive.”

Mia Nygren, managing director for Lan America at Spofy,

says that the Argennian audiences “skew mobile, social

media and real-me informaon consumpon”, which she

sees as an advantage for the future when “innovaon around

fan and arst connecons will be key”.

What’s more, she says that quaranne has led to many

people across Lan American opening bank accounts, which

will work to the digital music industry’s advantage “Financial

inclusion, by the means of digital payments, was a challenge

for the digital economy to ourish,” she explains. “This trend

could posively aect the music industry.”

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Argentina

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Guillermo Castellani,

Warner Music Argentina

One silver lining of

the current situation

is that an increasing

number of fans have

started using streaming

services... the direction

of travel is extremely

positive.”

PAULO LONDRA

Real GDP (percentage change

from previous year)

Emerging markets

and developing

economies

World

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

Argenna

Lan America and

the Caribbean

Brazil

Region/country

Another posive for the Argennian music business is the

rise in exports. Castellani says that Argenna is once again

exporng music worldwide “aer 30 long years”. “We’ve seen

the emergence of a parcular Argenne take on Lan music,”

he explains.

“It’s not reggaeton, or a descendant of it, it’s a specic genre

inspired by American ‘80s hip-hop, early trap music and

2000s rappers.” Possibly the best known example of this is

Paulo Londra a young rapper / singer who featured on Ed

Sheeran’s “No. 6 Collaboraons Project”.

Madoery says that there has been “an explosion of new

projects in Argenna, linked to rap and rhythms such as

trap that very quickly went out to conquer other territories”.

“The greatest example is Paulo Londra,” he adds, “but also

Khea, Duki, or Wos managed to transcend borders with a

new Argenne musical sound and at an incredible speed

and today there is a very powerful scene and many new

arsts with internaonal

projecon.”

As such Castellani says he

is “opmisc that things will

be much beer in 2021,

as we get past the current

crisis”. “The success of

local urban music is set to

fuel wider industry growth

over the next few years,”

he concludes. “At Warner,

we’re working with excing

arsts such as Lil Killah

who are really connecng

with fans and starng to

generate big streaming

numbers. Our internaonal

acts, such as Coldplay

and Dua Lipa, are also

connuing to generate signicant tracon in Argenna.”

Nygren shares this opmism. “When looking at the health of

the Argennian music market there are mulple factors at

play that have to be taken into account: inaon, currency

depreciaon, overall economic health and the relaonship

between all of them, just to name a few,” she says. “We can

condently say that we see the Argennian music industry

connue to grow. While we don’t pretend to make any

macroeconomic projecons, we see posive signs that

support the idea of growth in the market following our 2019

metrics compared to the previous year. We also expect

growth to connue happening this year too.”

Source: World Bank

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Brazil

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 211.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $3.248 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $15,600

Internet users - total... 141.6m

Broadband connections... 31.2m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 15

Mobile phone subscriptions... 207m

Smartphone users... 141.5m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Brazil : statistics

BRAZIL’S MUSIC INDUSTRY LOOKS SET to record another

year of strong growth in 2020, despite the country being badly

hit by Covid-19. The last three years have seen the Brazilian

recorded music industry experience double-digit growth

overall, aer income declined in 2015 and 2016, as the country

experienced an economic recession that was the worst in its

history. In 2019, recorded music revenue in Brazil grew by

13.1% according to Pro-Música Brasil, with a 23% increase in

streaming income more than enough to compensate for drops

in other digital and physical income.

These rises have coincided with the Brazilian economy also

returning to growth, growing 1.3% in 2018 and 1.1% in 2019,

according to the IMF. The impact of Covid - which has been

responsible for almost 160,000 deaths in Brazil at me of

wring - is likely to send the Brazilian economy tumbling back

into recession, with the IMF predicng a 9.1% fall in 2020.

But Paulo Rosa, president of Pro-Música Brasil, says that the

Brazilian recorded music market is performing well in 2020,

with a year-on-year increase in revenues in the region of 30%

from January to September.

“Subscripons and ad-supported income derived from

interacve streaming of music in audio and video plaorms

have been the key factor to explain this good performance in

the three rst quarters of 2020,” he tells Music Ally.

At the same me, the Brazilian music industry - or at least the

Brazil’s digital music industry has made up for a slow start with years

of growth, a trend that should continue into 2021 and beyond

independent sector - remains very posive about its future

, according to new research from the Brazilian Associaon

of Independent Music (ABMI). The ABMI’s rst Brazilian

Independent Music Market Survey, published in October

2020, found that 89% of respondents are opmisc about the

future, while distributors and aggregators had noced “posive

economic eects” due to the pandemic.

“Although this research is focused on 2019, the respondents

were interviewed from May 2020 on, so the pandemic eects

were already around for several months.” ABMI president

Carlos Mills tells Music Ally. “This level of opmism was also a

surprise for us but I guess that most labels are condent about

the sustainability of the streaming model growth in the long

term. Here in Brazil we are far away from market saturaon in

terms of subscripons.”

Indeed, Mills views saturaon level for music streaming in

Brazil as around 70m subscribers - around one third of the

total populaon. Given that Brazil ended 2019 with 11.8m

subscribers to licensed music streaming services, that leaves

massive room for growth.

Mia Nygren, managing director for Lan America at Spofy,

says that streaming adopon has grown considerably over the

past few years in Lan America, including Brazil, as access to

devices and the internet grows “A recent study from Cec.

br (the Regional Centre for Studies on the Development

of the Informaon Society in Brazil), shows that three out

of four people living in Brazil can now access the internet.

Music streaming has connued to be the engine of growth as

Brazilians are adopng it as their preferred way to consume

music,” Nygren explains.

“We see this on IFPI reported revenues from 2019, which says

that LatAm connues to post the fastest growth rates in the

world (+18.9% y/y). It also states that Lan America was the

region with the highest proporon of revenues generated by

streaming worldwide.”

Marcos Swarovsky, South America Director of Deezer, says that

2019 “was a turning point for music streaming in Brazil”. “The

recent IFPI report clearly showed how digital music and paid

streaming connued to grow healthily in Brazil and across Lan

America,” he adds.

“Paid streaming accounted for almost three quarters of

recorded music revenues in the region and it is expected to

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Brazil

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Total revenue by format

77%

22%

Public performance

Streaming

Physical

Other

digital

0.6%

Streaming revenue

by format

71%

Audio subscriptions

21%

Video streams

income

Ad-supported

audio streaming

connue growing this year. Overall, Brazilians became more

aware of the benets of music streaming services, and started

adopng and using it more.”

As for the posive economic eects of the pandemic that the

AMBI’s survey idened, Mills says that Covid had an impact on

the listening habits of the local audience, especially in the rst

few months, but not on the general growth of the subscripon

model, which meant that overall revenue kept growing.

“Besides that there was an increment in the number of songs

uploaded daily through the distributors / aggregators,” he adds.

“We heard from our members a growth of up to 30% in terms

of daily uploads. New and rst me collaboraons between

arsts has also increased a lot during this period, generang

lots of interesng new content.”

Nygren explains that ecommerce has also grown in Brazil

during the pandemic, which should provide a boost for the

digital music industry in a country where, unl recently,

credit card use as limited.

“Ecommerce has grown considerably since Covid-19 hit

in Brazil,” Nygren explains. “According to ABComm (the

Brazilian Associaon of ecommerce), ecommerce and

online retail has grown 55% year over year in the rst ve

months of 2020 in Brazil - and this is parcularly due to the

pandemic. Based on what we have been able to observe

within Spofy, we have seen signicant growth in card

usage in the prepaid space.”

Swarovsky agrees. “Consumers have denitely goen more

used to online transacons this year,” he says. “Ecommerce

players have stated that the development they saw this

year is equivalent to what they expected in the next three

years. On our side, we saw a very high number of people

trying our premium oers via our special three months free

(try & buy) promoons, where the user has to input a valid

credit card number, which brought us growth of our paying

subscriber base this year.”

In its Market Survey the ABMI reported that Amazon

Music had passed Deezer in Brazil to become the second

DSP in number of subscribers, behind Spofy, which

has 61% of total subscribers and contributed 45% of all

Brazilian recorded music revenues in 2019. Spofy Lite,

which launched in Brazil in July 2019, is also said to have

contributed to the growth of streaming, thanks to its

economic use of data.

“Lan America is one of the most relevant markets for

Spofy Lite at a global level,” says Nygren. “Since its ocial

launch in July 2019, we have found that our users in Brazil

were the ones who streamed the most music using Lite, out

of all the 37 markets in which the app is available. Brazil is

followed by Mexico, India, Indonesia, and Argenna.”

Mills says there are several reasons for Amazon’s success. “The

rst one is that we do not have a very big Apple hardware user

base in the country, relavely speaking, so Apple Music who

usually is a strong contender in many markets, does not have

the same performance in Brazil,” he says.

“Secondly, YouTube Music is not converng their huge YouTube

base into subscribers as quickly as expected. And nally, the

Amazon Prime business model, that oers many services under

the same subscripon, has helped them a lot. Amazon Prime

has grown very rapidly in Brazil. But it is important to state that

we only considered Amazon Prime subscribers that eecvely

use the music service. The users that do not use the music

service were not included in our stascs.”

None of this, of course, should underplay the devastang eect

of Covid-19 on Brazil. But, for the country’s music industry,

at least, things are looking reasonably posive. “Although

Covid-19 has heavily hit Brazil, we are condent that the

recorded music industry at large has not been very aected as

much as other industries. We see people connue to consume

more and more music streaming,” Nygren concludes.

“Covid-19 has had other devastang consequences such

as the lack of tours and live music events and we now see

arsts with the challenge of building audiences in a world

without touring in which they now rely only on the internet.

“On a posive note, we know that LatAm audiences are

very engaged and connected on the internet, this is a great

opportunity for innovaon around fan and arst connecons.”

Source: Pro-Música Brasil

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Canada

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 37.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $1.774tn

GDP per capita (PPP)... $48,400

Internet users... 31.7m

Percent of population... 89.8%

Broadband connections... 14.4m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 39

Mobile phone subscriptions... 33.2m

Sources: CIA World Factbook

Canada: statistics

AS THE THIRD DECADE OF THE

21st CENTURY begins, it is tempng

to wonder if Canada’s – possibly rather

clichéd – reputaon for low-octane

stability has leaked into its music business.

As other digital music markets around the

world experience streaming-led leaps in

recorded music income, revenue in Canada

grew just 0.5% in 2018, a result that saw

China and Australia both overtake it in the

global rankings.

There are, however, extenuang

circumstances. Canada’s recorded music

income in 2017 was boosted by a one-

o performance rights payment and Music Canada claims

that, by normalising the revenue in 2017 to compare it to

2018, there was actually a 5.5% increase in recorded music

revenue in the country year-on-year. Meanwhile, in 2018

Canadian collecng society SOCAN paid out CAD $320m

(US$241.35m) to its members, an 8% year-on-year growth.

What’s more, according to Nielsen, 2019 saw total album

equivalent audio consumpon in Canada increase by

18.1%, driven by a 31.2% growth in on-demand audio song

streams. Going further into the Nielsen gures, we see a

Canadian music market behaving similarly to most major

Canada may have been initially slow to embrace streaming, but

recent years have seen the market make steady gains, even if

YouTube remains a constant source of irritation.

music industries. While audio song

streams were up, total physical

album sales in Canada declined by

23.3% to 10.4m copies in 2019 and

digital album sales fell 24.5% to

3.8m units.

SOCAN CEO Eric Bapste says

that the total number of music

subscribers in Canada most

recently reported to his society is

7.8m, or around 22% of the total

populaon.

“Remember, though, that SOCAN

works with total subscriber

numbers, which do not necessarily reect the total

number of individuals who have access to subscripons,”

he explains. Bapste adds that, from what SOCAN has

seen, there has been growth in the number of subscribers

recently “but just not as fast as in recent years”.

While it is sll too early to give gures for recorded music

income for 2019, Music Canada president and CEO Graham

Henderson says we should not expect a similar growth

in income to that seen in Nielsen’s consumpon gures.

“While this growth that we’ve connued to see over the

past few years is promising – and we expect that growth

to connue – it is important to note that revenues do not

directly track consumpon,” he says.

Perhaps more worrying for the Canadian music industry is

the fact that the Nielsen gures show that consumpon

of on-demand video songs grew faster last year (at 59.7%),

than on-demand audio song streams (31.2%), as the value

gap rears its ugly head once more.

“Despite the wide availability of subscripon music

plaorms, many consumers sll turn to user-upload

services like YouTube to listen to music,” Henderson says.

“Some 35% of respondents to a 2018 IFPI survey cited the

availability on YouTube of the music they want as a major

reason for not using paid audio subscripon services.”

Bapste took a similarly wary atude at SOCAN’s 2019

annual meeng, even as the society announced a growth

in payments. “The popularity of music streaming connues

52%

36%

Other video platforms Social media

YouTube

Piracy Live concerts

Purchased music Other

-35

-30

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

26.3

%24.4

-3.2

-30.1

-31.9

Other digital Streaming

Physical

Sync

Performance Rights

Annual growth by format 2019

were. “People have adjusted to

the new normal

and are now looking for some

entertainment,” he says.

Both he and Nygren, then,

remain posive for the future.

“We sll see incredible

potenal for growth in

Mexico as a market, given the

country’s young populaon

and increasing mobile access

to digital services,” Nygren

says. “We have come really far,

but there is a lot of room to

grow.”

Rodríguez adds, “I’m extremely

condent that the recorded

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ United States

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 335m

GDP (purchasing power parity)...

$20,524,945,000,000

GDP per capita (PPP)... $62,530

Mobile/cell phone subscriptions... 408.5m

Smartphone users... 280.6m

Internet users - total... 285.5m

Broadband connections... 110.6m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 people... 34

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

USA: statistics

WHILE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY oen looks to the USA for

the next musical trend, the country doesn’t get the same level

of appreciaon as a digital music pioneer, with observers

instead looking to the likes of Scandinavia and South Korea to

give us an idea of where digital consumpon trends are going.

As a result, the vast strides that the US has taken in the

shi towards streaming have got somewhat overlooked.

But they are remarkable nonetheless: research for MRC

Data / Billboard found that on-demand audio streaming

consumpon in the US was up 17% year-on-year in 2020,

while the most recent RIAA gures revealed that 75.5m

Americans subscribe to a music streaming service, up 15.1m

from 2019. This was the largest ever increase in subscriber

numbers in a single year.

Indeed, subscripon numbers in the US are growing at

a rate that is steadily increasing, from 10.8m in 2015 to

22.7m in 2016; 35.3m in 2017; 46.9m in 2018; 60.4m in

2019; and 75.5m in 2020. (Nelix, by contrast, had around

74m subscribers in the US in the last quarter of 2020.) This

trend suggests that music subscripon numbers in the US

are far from levelling o, as might be expected in what is a

relavely mature digital market.

Even more impressive is the fact that the RIAA gures quite

signicantly underesmate the amount of music subscribers

in the US by not including ‘limited-er’ subscripons like

The USA’s digital music market is one of the most vibrant globally

and shows little sign of slowing down, even if the price paid for

subscriptions is slowing

Pandora Plus or Amazon’s Prime Music and by counng

family plans as a single subscripon.

Recent research from Stasta claims that the number of

Amazon Music users in the US was expected to climb to

41.8m in 2021, from 30.4m in 2018. This gure includes

subscribers to “full” services, such as Amazon Music

Unlimited and Amazon Music HD (which are included in the

RIAA subscriber numbers), as well as Amazon Prime Music

(which isn't.) As such, it is hard to say what kind of numbers

these ‘limited-er’ services would add to the RIAA subscriber

total but it is likely to be in the millions.

Dr. Richard James Burgess, president and CEO of A2IM

(American Associaon of Independent Music), compares

the number of music streaming subscribers in the US to

the number of people who subscribe to subscripon video

on demand services. “There are well over 200m SVOD

subscripons in the US but SVOD subscribers subscribe to

more than one VOD service,” he says.

“The music industry uses a commodised model where

every service has basically the same selecon of music

as opposed to SVOD services, which have exclusive

content that drives mulple subscripons. There are about

123m households in the US, so with family plans etc.

and a common database of music, it seems unlikely that

the number of subscribers would exceed the number of

households, but there does appear to be room for growth

based on the current number of music subscribers.”

As subscriber numbers climb in the US, so too does streaming

revenue. The RIAA reported that streaming revenue in the

US grew 13.4% to $10.1bn in 2020. Breaking this down,

full-service paid subscripons brought in $7.0bn (up 14.6%

year-on-year); limited-er paid subscripons earned $724m (up

13.4%); digital and customised radio services were responsible

for $1.2bn (up 3.9%) and ad-supported on-demand services

brought in $1.2bn (up 16.8%).

The laer gure - while healthy enough - was impacted by

the Covid pandemic, which depressed the US ad market. The

previous three years had seen an average of 30% revenue

growth in ad-supported streaming year-on-year. With the

US economy and ad spending expected to rebound in 2021,

we can probably expect revenue gures for ad-supported

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ United States

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Dr Richard James Burgess,

A2IM

There are about 123m

households in the US,

so with family plans etc

and a common database

of music, it seems

unlikely that the number

of subscribers would

exceed the number of

households, but there

does appear to be room

for growth...

streaming to increase signicantly again this year. An RIAA

spokesperson said that, while they can’t make predicons

for 2021, “in the laer part of 2020 we already saw ad-

supported revenues returning to stronger growth”.

The spanner in the works is that, while the number of total

streaming subscribers in the US has connued to grow at

ever-increasing rates, the growth in streaming subscripon

revenue appears to be slowing, at least on a year-by-year

basis. According to the RIAA, income from full-service paid

subscripons grew 14.6% in 2020; but this was down from

a 27.5% increase year-on-year in 2019 and a 33.0% rise in

2018. (An RIAA spokesperson tells Music Ally that in the

second half of 2020 average revenue per subscripon was

higher than in the rst half.)

The annual growth in overall streaming revenue has also

slowed: streaming revenues grew by 43% in 2017, by 30.1%

in 2018, by 19.9% in 2019 and by 13.4% in 2020, according

to the RIAA. The fact that the average price people are paying

for music subscripons in the US is falling is problemac, given

that the music industry and DSPs alike are trying to edge up the

price of streaming subs. Spofy, for example, raised its prices in

Norway by 10% in May 2018.

“I am deeply concerned about the drop in subscripon

revenues coincident with the growth of subscripon

numbers,” says Burgess. “Music subscripons are

comparavely inexpensive and we need revenues to go up

to get the recorded music industry back to and above where

it was before the digital disrupon. An equivalent number

today would be about $22bn (by adjusted dollars) so we are

sll a long way short at around $12.2bn in the US for 2020.”

It’s also worth menoning that Spofy is signicantly

increasing its share of the podcast market in the US -

research rm eMarketer recently claimed that Spofy

overtook Apple for podcast listening in the US in 2020 -

which means that the company’s subscribers in the US have

other demands on their listening me, beyond music.

This is far from a crisis, though. Burgess says that, anecdotally,

he has heard that the rst few months of 2021 have been

posive for the recorded music industry in the US, although

labels that are dependent on touring are suering. “I am

opmisc that we will connue to see growth,” he concludes.

An RIAA spokesperson adds, “We were very pleased to achieve

another year of strong revenue growth in digital last year -

especially given the challenging environment, and we see lots

of opportunity there. Also, it’s important that digital helps fans

connect with their favourite arsts, and oers a crucial revenue

source for arsts at a me when so many arsts and other

music professionals face real nancial challenges given the

Covid pandemic’s devastang impact on the live sector.”

US music industry streaming revenues

in $ billions

US music industry revenues

in $ billions

7.3bn

8.9bn

10.1bn

2018 2019 2020

$6.5bn

$9.7bn

$7.4bn

$11.1bn

$8bn

$12.2bn

Retail

Wholesale

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

EUROPE

 BELGIUM

 FRANCE

 GERMANY

 HUNGARY

 NETHERLANDS

 POLAND

 RUSSIA

europeeurope

❱ Belgium

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 11.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $529.2 billion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $46,600

Internet users - total... 10.3m

Broadband connections... 4.5m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 39

Mobile phone subscriptions... 11.4m

Smartphone users... 9.0m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Belgium: statistics

BELGIUM IS SLOWLY CATCHING UP to its neighbours in

the adopon of music streaming, with industry execuves

predicng that the country will reach a total of 2.5m

subscribers over the next few years.

Belgian recorded music body BEA Music reported that in

2019 music streaming income rose by 31% in Belgium,

accounng for 60% of the country’s total turnover, up

from 35% in 2017. This strong performance helped overall

recorded music revenue to climb 8% to €78.32m ($98.39m).

Patrick Guns, chairman of BEA Music and general manager

of Universal Music Belgium, said that the result “shows that

Belgians can nd their way more and more easily towards

streaming services such as Spofy, Apple Music, Deezer

among others”, while predicng further gains. “If we look at

other comparable music markets, we are convinced that this

growth trend will connue,” he said. “There is clearly even

more potenal, a promising development for the future.”

Charloe De Mets, head of markeng at Warner Music

Benelux, agrees. “There’s been an exponenal growth

in paid subscripon streaming over the last two years in

Belgium, as more fans use these plaorms to connect with

music,” she says. “We’ve seen some really strong local arsts

break through and I think their success stories have helped

aract people to streaming services.”

Belgium may not be a digital music powerhouse but

music streaming is in the ascendance there, after

DSPs improved their service in the country.

She says that around 1.5m people in Belgium currently

subscribe to a music streaming service - not bad for a

country of 11.7m people, although not spectacular either

- predicng that this can grow to 2.5m over the next few

years.

Naturally, this will depend on the development of both

digital infrastructure and data plans. De Mets says that

the telco market in Belgium is sll not as compeve as

in neighbouring countries like the Netherlands, while the

Digital Belgium strategy, launched back in 2016 to achieve

economic growth through digital innovaon, has yet to

impact the market.

“Most phones don’t yet support 5G and the upgrade to it

will be less impacul than the leap from 3G to 4G when it

comes to streaming,” she adds. “Consumers here face higher

bills and lower bandwidth than they do across the border

and we’ve not yet seen a successful telco streaming bundle

move the needle.”

DSPs, however, have improved their service in Belgium.

When we looked at the market in 2016, Michel Van Buyten,

then co-managing director of Sony Music Benelux, said that

there had been “not much focus on the Belgian territory

by streaming services themselves: limited markeng

investments or other iniaves”.

De Mets says this situaon has improved considerably.

“Digital services have now woken up to the opportunies

here in Belgium,” she explains. “We’re now able to have

direct conversaons with the teams at leading DSPs about

what music will perform strongly here - it’s a collaborave

dialogue. The fact that they’ve launched local playlists and

invested in D2C acvaons is really posive news for the

Belgian digital music market.

“But there are sll challenges to overcome, we’re improving

the opportunies available for local arsts but internaonal

repertoire is sll omnipresent on these services, so it can be

hard for Belgian talent to cut through.”

As a result, she believes Belgium is slowly catching up to

the world in terms of streaming. “Belgium has been slower

than its neighbours to adopt paid streaming,” De Mets

says. “French music fans were early to adopt Deezer, while

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Belgium

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Charlotte De Mets,

Warner Music Benelux

There’s been an

exponential growth

in paid subscription

streaming... We’ve

seen really strong local

artists break through

and I think their success

stories have helped

attract people to

streaming services...”

ROMÈO ELVIS

consumers in The

Netherlands were

among the fastest

to adopt Spofy,

oen o the back

of very successful

telco deals. But

we’re now growing

faster in terms of the

percentage of streaming users who pay to subscribe, so we’re

denitely catching up.”

Despite this, physical music sales remain relavely strong

in Belgium, making up 32% of total turnover in 2019 aer

revenue fell 14% year-on-year, a decline that De Mets says

was less than some analysts were predicng.

All this, of course, must be seen through the lens of Covid,

with Belgium apparently home to one of the highest

coronavirus death rates globally and the country’s economy

expected to shrink 8.3% in 2020. As expected, the impact

of Covid has been devastang on Belgium’s live industry

and has sharply accelerated the decline in physical sales,

according to De Mets. Streaming, however, has largely been

unaected, with changes in listening paerns leaving the

overall volume of streams relavely stable.

Before the full impact of Covid became clear, 2020 was

shaping up to be another year of growth for the Belgian

music industry, with paid streaming in ascendance and

physical music sales declining gradually. The global

pandemic may have radically altered the global music

market but De Mets says she expects the Belgian market to

recover in 2021, as restricons ease.

Revenue by format in million €

25.38

–14.08%

46.77

+30.64%

5.91

–18.6%

Physical

Download

Streaming

29.54

35.8

7.26

2019 2018

Physical

Download

Streaming

Source: Belgian Entertainment

Associaon

ANGÈLE

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ France

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 67.8m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $2.856 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $44,100

Mobile/cell phone subscriptions... 70.42m

Smartphone users... 47.2m

Internet users - total... 57.2m

Broadband connections... 29.1m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 people... 43

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

France : statistics

THE FACT THAT FRANCE’S recorded music industry managed

to grow its revenue - albeit by just 0.1% - in 2020, in the

face of the global pandemic should, perhaps, be cause for

celebraon. 2020 was a hard year for the global economy and

any growth is to be welcomed.

SNEP, the French music industry body, called the results “proof

of the solidity of [the French music industry’s] economic model,

which has managed to stay the course despite a context

completely disrupted by the health crisis” and it is hard to argue

too much with that.

The problem comes when France’s growth is compared to

other music markets who have all been in the same boat: the

German recorded music market grew 9% in 2020, while the

UK was up by 2.2%. France’s rather stac result also comes at a

tricky me for the country’s recorded music industry, which has

been making the transion to digital at a rather sluggish pace.

In 2018 digital music revenue in France overtook that of

physical for the rst me – some six years aer the UK – with

the recorded music market growing 1.8% overall. The following

year recorded music revenue in France grew 5.4% to €772m,

with streaming accounng for 57% of trade revenue. To go

from this to 0.1% growth – whatever the circumstances – is

disappoinng. SNEP said that the French music market was

weighed down in 2020 by “a decline in adversing revenue from

tradional media sources, which caused neighbouring rights

France’s recorded music industry may have grown ever so slightly in

2020 but - in comparison with its neighbours - it might seem a little

too static for comfort.

revenues to drop signicantly by 19%”, while revenue from

physical music fell 20%. (As in neighbouring Germany, vinyl sales

in France grew last year, despite the pandemic, up 10%.)

Alexandre Lasch, head of SNEP, explains that the share of

physical revenues and neighbouring rights in the French market

remains much more signicant than in many other markets.

“Yet it is precisely these segments that have been most aected

by the health crisis,” he adds. “But the violence of this crisis

conrmed the robustness of our new business model: revenues

from streaming and in parcular from subscripon streaming

connued to grow rapidly.”

As Lasch suggests, digital performed well in France in 2020.

Streaming income grew by 20.6% to €453m, with the number

of paid music subscripons growing from 7.2m in 2019 to

8.7m in 2020. The number of people using premium streaming

services in France, meanwhile, is around 12m, including family

plans, while another 7.4m people in France use free services,

taking the total number of streaming to 19.4m, or slightly under

a third of the total populaon.

SNEP said streaming “has become the main means of listening

to music among under-35s” in France, adding, “As well as this,

for the rst me ever in France, subscripon-based streaming

alone generated more than half of total annual turnover.”

As to how high subscriber numbers can go, Lasch says France

sll has room for improvement. “These [subscripon] gures

equate to a penetraon rate of premium subscripons of

around 13% in France,” he says. “This is sll far behind that

of the US, for instance, where the number of subscripons

corresponds to 23% of the populaon. So we sll have a lot of

room for improvement and the number of subscripons could

double in the next few years.”

Streaming indicators

Paid subscripon audio streaming (€m)

0 100 200 300 400

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

Total audio streaming revenues (€m)

bn Volumes of streams (bn)

351

407

285

331

241

266

197

239

167

197

Source: GIK

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ France

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Among this uncertainty, one clear sign of light for the French

recorded music business was the incredible success of

domesc talent. In 2020, for the third year in a row, 19 of the

top 20 albums of the year were produced in France and sung

in French, accounng for 80% of 2020’s best-selling albums,

according to SNEP (AC/DC were the excepon).

Going back further, for the past six years there have been

between 17 and 19 French producon in the annual top

20 albums, the kind of result that would make many music

industries seethe with envy. Leading the way was French rap

and R&B, which made up half of the top 200 albums.

Can France export this domesc success? Lasch believes so.

“French export successes are mulplying,” he says. “David

Guea is sll the boss, with the equivalent of 200 new diamond

single cercaons in 2020 for his repertoire outside France.

But new stories are being wrien for many other arsts: Aya

Nakamura conrms abroad, while Lous and The Yakuza, Polo

& Pan, Antoine Chambe, Bosh and many others are becoming

the new standard-bearers of music made in France. And for the

rst me, cercaons of rap and urban music arsts abroad

are now equal to those of electro arsts. This is a sign that the

French language is no longer a barrier to export.”

Lasch congratulated the French music industry for connuing

to invest in new talent, despite the dicult circumstances. “In

these uncertain mes the French music industry has connued

to take risks - in 2020 more than €300m was invested in new

signings, producons, recordings, markeng and in all the other

means of promoon that have had to be adapted to comply

with restricons imposed by the global health situaon.”

In this respect, the French music industry is fortunate to have a

sympathec government, that realises the importances of the

arts. As well as the quota for local music on the radio, France

is also home to the crédit d’impôt en faveur de la producon

phonographique - a tax credit that allows music companies to

oset up to 30% of producon costs each year.

Closing o its results, SNEP said that “in these precarious,

unprecedented mes, the sustainability and quality of the

tax credit system and the exceponal aid oered to recorded

music companies is more vital than ever”.

Overall, France’s recorded music industry remains on a fairly

even keel despite the unique demands of 2020. Speaking

to Music Ally in October 2020, Jean-Noël Tronc, CEO of

Sacem, the French Society of Authors, Composers and Music

Publishers, predicted that it would be “dicult to return to a

normal funconing of the market in 2021: there is a risk of

trac jams with new releases planned for 2020 postponed;

tours that promote records will not necessarily take place under

normal condions with the same audience numbers.”

The country’s results for 2021, then, will be very eagerly

watched, to see whether France can return to the digital-

led growth of 2019, or the market remains at. But Lasch

remains opmisc. “Subscripon streaming is more than ever

at the heart of the growth model: in this exceponal period,

it has proved its solidity in the face of the most brutal and

unpredictable hazards,” he concludes.

“So there is reason for opmism, but not a blissful one - the

industry’s results are to the credit of the music producers who

have connued their relentless human and nancial eorts to

develop careers and make arsts shine in the domesc market

and beyond.”

French export

successes are

multiplying. David

Guetta is still the boss, with

the equivalent of 200 new

diamond single certiﬁcations

in 2020 for his repertoire

outside France. But new

stories are being written for

many other artists...”

Alexandre Lasch,

SNEP

Digital-based turnover comparison

(2013/2020)

73%

14%

53%

28%

16%

Paid subscripon streaming

Digital download Ringtones

Ad-supported streaming

Physical

2013 2020

Digital: 1/4 of

2013 revenues

Digital: 3/4 of

2020 revenues

Source: SNEP

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

23.04.2021 •

❱ Germany

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 79.8m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $4.482 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $53,919

Mobile/cell phone subscriptions... 103.1m

Internet users - total... 72.7m

Broadband connections... 34.2m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 people... 42

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Germany : statistics

GERMANY’S RELATIVELY SLOW TRANSITION towards

a streaming-led music market has been accelerated by the

eects of the pandemic, with streaming booming and CD

sales - for so long the cornerstone of the German music

business - down sharply.

According to recorded music industry body BVMI, audio

streaming revenue in Germany grew 24.6% in 2020 to

€1.13bn, or 63.4% of total income. The most recent gures for

the number of streaming subscribers in Germany come from

March 2020, when they numbered 11m, up 2m from 2019,

but BVMI CEO Dr Florian Drücke says there is sll room for

growth, with greatest potenal among the older market.

Income from CDs, by contrast, fell 18% in 2020 and - while

the CD remains the second biggest source of income for the

German recorded music industry - its 21.6% share is now

around one third of that of streaming.

The sharp decline in CD income compares to a 19.9% decline

in 2018 and a 10.5% drop in 2019. Drücke says that the

pandemic clearly aected CD sales but explains that he expects

further decline in the future.

“The strongest eect [of the pandemic] is a further shi from

brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce,” he says. “In general of

course the crisis has a devastang eect for the wider music

economy, in the heart of it the arsts and also our industry is hit.”

Germany’s music industry has held up well in the face of the

pandemic, although some ill effects are yet to come in one of the

world’s biggest music markets.

Slightly unexpectedly, as CD sales fell sharply, income from

vinyl sales soared, up 24.7% in 2020 to make up 5.5% of the

total market, with downloads taking up fourth place on 4.2%

aer a 24.8% decline.

Drücke says that the most likely explanaon for this “seems

to me that the hapc experience worked as an emoonal

compensaon for the lack of live concerts, the desire to

support arsts in those hard mes and also a number of

compellingly aracve vinyl fan boxes”.

Overall, the German recorded music industry grew 9% last

year to €1.79bn, beang the 8.2% increase in 2019. Drücke

describes this as “very good news for now”. But his overall tone

is more measured – Drücke says that fans have “nolens volens

increasingly supplied themselves with music in the digital

space” using a Lan term that essenally means “whether they

like it or not”.

What’s more, he says that some of the eect of the pandemic

on recorded music revenue has yet to be seen. “Besides the

eects on physical sales and the challenges for producon and

releases, we have to bear in mind that some of the negave

eects such as the lockdown will be seen with a delay,” he says.

“This is because the licensing income e.g. for broadcasng in

bars, clubs etc. is distributed by the collecng sociees in the

consequent year.”

The other lingering headache is the age-old problem of

YouTube. “The increasing digital share of currently 71.5% [of

the total German recorded music market] also necessarily

means a signicantly increasing urgency with regard to resilient

framework condions in the network,” he says. “Equally

important for us is a beer understanding of the digital playing

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Germany

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

eld that does not ignore the economic realies of our industry.

“The German implementaon of the Copyright Direcve must

not be allowed to damage the delicate licensing architecture

for music companies and arsts - because the European

compromise wants the opposite: creators and their partners

should beer parcipate in the revenues of user upload

plaorms like YouTube.”

Video streaming, he adds, is one of the most popular channels

for music consumpon in Germany but contributes less than

4% of total revenue. “The most recent gures for Germany

are from a long-term study on music consumpon we are

commissioning together with a number of other industry

associaons,” he says. “Among the free streaming oers,

YouTube is the number two channel (41%) aer Spofy (62%)

for people to listen to music via free streaming oers - far

ahead of other oers.”

For all this, Drücke remains largely posive. He doesn’t want to

comment on revenue gures for the rst two months of 2021

before BVMI publishes its half-yearly gures but concedes that

they “don’t look bad”.

The strongest effect [of the

pandemic] is a further shift

from brick-and-mortar retail

to e-commerce... Besides

the effects on physical

sales and the challenges for

production and releases, we

have to bear in mind that

some of the negative effects

such as the lockdown will be

seen with a delay”

Dr Florian Drücke,

BVMI

Source: BVMI

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

24.05.2021 •

❱ Hungary

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 9.6m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $316 billion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $32,434

Internet users - total... 7.43m

Broadband connections... 3.19m

Smartphone users... 6.93m

Sources: UN / Worldometers; IMF; Stasta

Hungary: statistics

WITH A POPULATION OF SLIGHTLY UNDER 10 million and

a language impenetrable to many outsiders, it is perhaps

no surprise that Hungary is not exactly top of global music

industry thinking. But it should be creeping up the agenda,

at the very least: in 2019 Hungary was one of the fastest

growing music markets in the world, with overall recorded

music revenue increasing by more than 20%, according to

local sources.

Perhaps more surprisingly, growth occurred in both physical

and digital music revenue. According to Hungarian recorded

music associaon MAHASZ, digital music revenue grew

37.6% in 2019, driven by a 41% hike in streaming, while

physical revenue increased 1.53% in the same me period.

Jehan Paumero, head of distribuon for Hungary, Romania

and Balkans at Believe, says that Hungary is “sll an

emerging market”. “Digital plaorms came here late, iTunes

launched in 2013, so basically nine years aer its launch in

Western Europe’s key territories,” he says.

This, he explains, le a large space for piracy. “Download

plaorms users in Western Europe have been converted

to streaming plaorms users as soon as streaming came

to their markets,” he adds. “But Hungary never really used

download plaorms, so it took much more me to convert

piracy to streaming consumpon, especially because most

of the plaorms haven’t even marketed themselves since

they entered the market.”

Hungary came late to digital music but is rapidly making up for lost time,

transforming it into one of Europe’s fastest growing music markets

The result of all this is that Hungary is now experiencing

the kind of streaming-led rise in music revenue that many

Western European countries experienced a few years ago,

with the picture muddled by the popularity of YouTube.

“Hungary (like every other Central and Eastern European

country) has historically been a huge YouTube consumer,”

Paumero explains. “The conversion from piracy to streaming

has gone through YouTube (you can see here tracks reaching

20M views and 100k streams). Then people realised slowly

that listening to music on streaming plaorms is much more

praccal than storing gigabytes of music on their computer

or watching videos on their phones.”

Paumero says that Hungary has around 750,000 premium

streaming subscribers today, helped by the fact that a

Premium subscripon costs the equivalent of around

€5, half the cost of many Western European countries.

“Although many of these users are part of a family

subscripon, this is already a decent number and gives

hopes for the future,” Paumero explains.

Streaming in Hungary is dominated by Spofy, with Apple

Music and YouTube Music their biggest competors, and

YouTube Music growing rapidly. “Historically,” Paumero

adds, “Deezer has been the only streaming service to

have an editor locally, in Hungary but also in other smaller

Central European territories, and they sll have a decent

number of users. Hungary used to have relevant local music

services, but none of them really survived the Spofy wave.”

Hungary, Paumero says, cannot really be compared to

other Eastern European countries, with all having their

own individual idiosyncrasies. One of Hungary’s quirks is a

strong physical music market, fuelled by “a deal between a

local gas company and major independent arsts, who sell

their albums for a ridiculous price (1000 HUF, less than

3 euros) in all their service staons”, according to

Paumero. The rise in physical music income, then, is not

so straighorward: CD sales dropped by 2% in Hungary in

2019, while vinyl sales rose 14%.

Pre-pandemic Hungary was looking forward to another

strong year of growth in recorded music income, with signs

in the rst quarter of 2020 very promising.

The eect of the pandemic on the recorded music business

has been very varied: established arsts, who base their

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Hungary

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Revenue by format

in Hungarian Forint (US$1 = 297 HUF)

107.2m

–15.95%

2.86bn

+41.02%

Downloads

Streaming

2.02bn

127.5m

2019

Downloads

Streaming

2018

Total 2019: 2.962bn HUF Total 2018: 2.152bn HUF

500m

1.0bn

1.5bn

2.0bn

2.5bn

3.0bn

Mobile Subscrip. Ad-based Video Total

phone audio audio streaming streaming

content streaming streaming revenue

5.73m

1.89bn

280.1m

683.3m

2.86bn

2019 commercial value

in Hungarian Forint

release schedule on concerts and tours, inially delayed

their new releases in the hope that they might be able

to tour in support of them, with many of them only now

geng around to pung out their new material.

Many young arsts, on the other hand, have

managed to use the situaon to their benet.

“We’ve seen Gen Z arsts reaching amazing

numbers, reaching more easily than ever

youngsters stuck at home, releasing hits once a

month,” says Paumero. “So the pandemic seems

to have had a posive eect on this kind of

arsts, concentrang 100% on producing and

releasing music.”

As such, Paumero remains posive for the

future of the Hungarian market, despite the

dicult mes. “DSPs are taking the region

more seriously and launched local editorial

teams recently, which opens new horizons to

arsts as they see their eorts rewarded by

playlist inclusions and markeng campaigns,” he

concludes.

“Arsts play a major role in the digital music

industry by driving their audience to the digital

services and we can feel more than ever that

they are taking this part seriously and applying

the advices we have been teaching them for

years now, contribung to the growth of digital

music consumpon.”

Hungary never really

used download

platforms, so it took

much more time to convert

piracy to streaming

consumption, especially

because most of the

platforms haven’t even

marketed themselves

since they entered

the market...”

Jehan Paumero,

Believe

LOCAL ARTISTS KOWALSKY & THE VEGA

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Netherlands

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 17.3m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $924.4 billion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $53,900

Internet users - total... 16.2m

Broadband connections... 7.4m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 42

Mobile phone subscriptions... 21.1m

Smartphone users... 14.96m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Netherlands : statistics

THE DUTCH MUSIC INDUSTRY IS EXPECTED to grow in

2020 despite the impact of Covid-19, thanks to a tech-

savvy populaon and one of the most advanced streaming

markets in the world.

In 2019, the Dutch music industry registered its strongest

growth for ve tears, with turnover up 13.2% to €206.8m

($244.2m) according to music industry associaon NVPI.

Streaming revenue increased 23% year-on-year to €161.7m

($190.9m), accounng for almost 80% of total revenue, up

from 50% in 2015.

“We’re sll seeing strong streaming growth in

the Netherlands,” says Warner Music Benelux

president Marn Jessurun. “The proporon of

Dutch people streaming has doubled in the last

eight years and around 60% of them have a

premium subscripon. People are also spending

more me listening to music, which is a hugely

posive sign of engagement.”

Speaking to Music Ally, the NVPI says it expects

the Dutch music industry to show overall

growth in 2020, nong the country’s tech-savvy

populaon and access to fast internet.

“More than half the populaon listens to Spofy

already (as of June 2020),” Koen de Groot, a

business intelligence analyst at NVPI, and Anne

de Jong, general manager of NVPI, explain.

A tech-savvy population that has wholeheartedly embraced streaming

has insulated the Dutch music industry from the worst effects of Covid

“Since 2013, that amount has doubled… In 2019, Dutch

people used Spofy more than people in the UK, France

and Germany.”

In the rst three months of 2020, before the global impact

of Covid-19 became apparent, the Dutch music industry

was showing healthy growth across the board. The country’s

“intelligent lockdown” in response to the virus, in which

around 80% of the populaon reduced their outdoor acvity,

clearly had a devastang eect on live music and physical

retail. Physical music sales in the Netherlands fell 10.7% in

2019 and NVPI says there was an addional 10% decline in

the rst nine months of the year.

Streaming did compensate for this but

“not in a big way” according to the

NVPI. “Yes, there is growth but not a

lot more than previous years,” de Groot

and de Jong say. “The actual increase is

now YTD 5% less than last year. It is not

like video streaming services (Nelix,

Disney+ and Amazon Prime) which

show a very big jump in revenue.”

That’s not to say that there isn’t

room for growth. Pre-pandemic

research from the NVPI shows that

85% of young adults (18-22) in the

Netherlands stream music, a number

that drops to less than 25% among

the 45+ age group. “So, there is sll

a huge potenal for persuading older consumers to stream

music,” de Groot and de Jong say. “But like we said before,

Dutch consumers (young and old) are quite tech-savvy, so

we think it will only be a maer of me before streaming

will also be picked up by the older generaons.”

Jessurun agrees that there is sll huge untapped potenal

when it comes to persuading older people in the

Netherlands to engage with music streaming. “Anecdotally,

I believe more older people have been signing up this

year and I’m sure more will connue to do so,” he says.

“That trend will boost the overall industry and I suspect

parcularly smulate more spins of catalogue music, which

is why we’re invesng more in promong that repertoire.”

Streaming has also been closely linked to the rise of Dutch

KRISS KROSS AMSTERDAM

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Netherlands

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

hip hop in its home country, with domesc talent generally

performing well. Both top album and top track of 2019 in the

Netherlands were by Dutch talent, courtesy of Frenna and

Kris Kross Amsterdam, with hip hop acts like Boef, Lil´ Kleine

and Dopebwoy also guring in the lists.

“The Dutch hip-hop scene is very big in the Netherlands,”

say de Groot and de Jong. “And because this especially

appeals to the younger

demographic, streaming

plays a very big role.

Domesc repertoire is

roughly a quarter of the

total streaming market.”

Language barriers means

Dutch hip hop generally

struggles to travel. The

NVPI says Dutch rap

exports to neighbouring

Belgium in growing

numbers but dance music

remains the country’s

main musical export.

What’s more, exports

are growing, valued at

€216m ($255m) in 2018

(the most recent year

for which gures are

available), up from €201m ($237.3m) in 2017.

“I’m super opmisc about the future of the Dutch

music industry,” Jessurun concludes. “We’ve just had two

amazing releases - with Dopebwoy and Nick & Simon - from

very dierent genres and both have done extremely well,

even in the current circumstances. There’s sll a hunger for

great new music, as well as the familiar classics, and that’s

driving engagement with streaming. I just can’t wait unl

we’re able to go to gigs and fesvals to enjoy seeing our

arsts play live.”

More than half the

population listens to Spotify

already. Since 2013, that

amount has doubled… In

2019, Dutch people used

Spotify more than people

in the UK, France and

Germany...”

Koen de Groot,

NVPI

Total revenue 2018-19

(in millions €)

Downloads Streaming Mobile CDs Vinyl Total

100

150

200

250

-21.3%

+23%

-18.6%

-15.7%

-1.3%

2019 2018

year-on-year change

+13.2%

Revenue share 2019

7.4%

12.2%

78.2%

2.0%

0.2%

Downloads

Streaming

Mobile

Vinyl

CDs

Source: NVPI

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Poland

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 38.3m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $1.126 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $29,600

Internet users - total... 29.0m

Broadband connections... 6.1m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 16

Mobile phone subscriptions... 51.1m

Smartphone users... 21.9m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Poland : statistics

IF YOU WANT AN EXAMPLE of a bullet-proof economy,

you could do a lot worse than Poland, the only EU member

state to avoid recession during the nancial crisis of 2008

and 2009. The same could be said for its music industry,

which has experienced years of steady growth as it slowly

transions towards digital. The two, of course, go hand in

hand: while Poland may be very polically divided in 2020,

Poles have, on the whole, felt the benets of these years

of economic growth, which has le them with money for

luxuries, such as music.

“Polish people are nancially doing well, they have never had

a quality of life like this and as high a purchasing power parity

as they do now,” explains Magdalena Jensen, co-founder and

managing partner, Chimes Agency. “A lot of that has to do with

the government. They are very populist and they kind of hand

out money, for families for example. That means you don’t just

have the money to make ends meet, you might have money to

spend on luxuries.”

A level of disposable income, combined with a love for

collecng physical goods, helps to explain the strength of the

physical music market in Poland. Physical music revenue in

Poland grew as recently as 2017 and, although it has slipped

back recently, it remains a signicant percentage of total sales.

“If you look at our physical market it’s very strong,” says Tony

Duckworth, general manager of PIAS Poland and Eastern

Europe. “If you were to take out digital from the world

Digital music revenue in Poland was higher than physical for the ﬁrst

time ever in the ﬁrst half of 2020 and streaming has helped local talent

– already big in Poland – to explode

markets, Poland would be in the top 10.”

That might sound like potenally bad news, given the impact

of Covid-19 on music retail (and therefore physical music

sales) around the world. But Duckworth says that PIAS has

seen physical sales hold up steady thanks to a concerted

eort to push CD and vinyl sales online, even as Empik,

a book chain that also sells physical music, was forced to

temporarily close stores.

For all that, streaming is on the rise in Poland, with revenue up

around 26% in 2019, as overall recorded music revenue

grew 3.4%, according to local sources. Jensen says that Polish

people are not, by their nature, early adopters but she expects

to see another rise in streaming use as a result of the pandemic.

Indeed, 2020 could be a landmark year for Poland. Marek

Włodarczyk, CEO of Independent Digital, says that in the

rst half of 2020 digital revenues were higher than physical

for the rst me in the history of the Polish market.

“According to [Polish industry body] ZPAV data for the rst

half of 2020, physical revenues amounted to 66.8 million

zl ($17.7m), which is a decrease of 22.8% compared to last

year. Digital revenues amounted to 92.5 million zl ($24.5m),

which is an increase of 26.3%.”

What’s more, Duckworth says that the Polish digital music

industry is doing a very good job in moving users from

freemium to premium accounts. “I really believe that the

streaming services have had an impact in developing our

market, opening up inuences to arsts and opening up

music to the people on the street,” says Duckworth. “It has

killed bootlegging, too, which used to be rife.”

Total subscriber numbers for streaming services in Poland

are believed to be somewhere north of 6m - impressive for

a country of 38.3m people - although Jensen says many of

these may be inacve.

“I would queson how many of those are acve users,” she

says. “We have services like Tidal that have been given away

with telcos. So you might get 2m people with a Tidal app on

the phone.”

Perhaps the most fundamental impact of streaming in Poland

has been in the rise of domesc hip hop. Poland has long

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Poland

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

been a market that favours local talent: in 2018 84% of the

most popular arsts in the Polish charts came from Poland,

according to a 2019 report commissioned by the Ministry

of Culture and Naonal Heritage, while hip hop has a long

history in the country.

But streaming has helped this to explode, making stars out

of arsts like Taco Hemingway, while legendary hip hop label

Def Jam opened an oce in Poland last year. According to

Włodarczyk, in the current Top 50 of Spofy Poland (at me of

wring), Polish hip-hop arsts occupy 32 posions, including

nine of the top ten. Jensen says, “Hip hop is the genre in

streaming. You don’t get hip hop on the radio and radio is sll

very important in Poland.”

Duckworth explains that hip

hop was always a very digital

genre, inially consumed

on YouTube. (Polish hip

hop accounted for 80% of

YouTube views among the

25 most popular songs in

Poland in 2018, according to

the Ministry of Culture and

Naonal Heritage.)

“But streaming has

helped the sector to develop in a rather more organised

environment. “The fact is that hip hop came from YouTube

and the arsts were already big there,” Duckworth says. “But

streaming is much more mainstream from the point of view

that it is much more user friendly and curated.”

Whether Polish hip hop will export

is another maer. Jensen says that

the strength of Poland’s domesc

market means many arsts aren’t

really concerned by selling outside

their home turf. “The thing with

Polish music is, the domesc

market is very, very healthy,” she

says. “You can make a good living

here, so there is no need to travel

abroad. And small bands don’t

have the funds to travel abroad.

The Zloty is very weak against the

Euro. So you need to do well to get

money to tour outside of Poland.

But if you’re doing well here, why

would you choose to go and tour

small venues in other countries?”

Of course, Poland is not without its problems. The country

is facing its rst recession in three decades with a projected

decline of 4.% in GDP in 2020 according to the IMF, as a

result of Covid. On a more macro level, Duckworth says

the Polish music industry could do a lot more to sustain the

market: the Polish chart, for example, is very much industry

facing, with most consumers unaware of who is at number

one, while the country’s main music award ceremony, the

Fryderyk awards, doesn’t drive sales in the same way that the

Brits or Grammys do.

But, with strong domesc sales, streaming on the rise

and Polish consumers’ notable loyalty

towards musicians, Poland seems well

set to ride out the troubles of 2020 and

connue to grow.

“We look to the future with opmism,”

Włodarczyk concludes. “In Poland,

the segment of independent labels

is constantly growing, and they are

quickly adapng to economic and social

condions and phenomena that were

dicult to predict (such as Covid-19).

What’s more, the indies have very

commied fans who idenfy with labels

and arsts. 90% of the most creave ideas in Polish music

come from independent arsts and labels. If the Polish

economy connues to grow, the auent society will choose

paid digital services.

Digital market

sales channels

Mobile phone downloads

93%

Streaming

100

150

200

250

300

65%

-8%

35%

+23.3%

100%

+1%

Digital sales Physical sales

Total sales

Music sales in Poland 2018

Online downloads

Figures in black box represent market share and

year-on-year change

TACO HEMINGWAY

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Russia

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 141.7m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $4.016 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $27,900

Internet users - total... 116m

Broadband connections... 32.1m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 23

Mobile phone subscriptions... 229.4m

Smartphone users... 106.2m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta

Russia : statistics

IN WHAT WAS GENERALLY A STRONG year for the

global music industry, Russia provided one of the standout

performances of 2019, with recorded music revenue up

50.3% according to local sources. Now, despite the impact

of Covid, the market looks set to grow again in 2020, with

execuves predicng strong growth for 2021.

Russia’s explosive growth in 2019 was, according to

Warner Music Russia MD Alexander Blinov, driven by

“a further acceleraon of the take-up of streaming by

music fans”. Streaming income in Russia was said to have

grown by almost 76% last year, which Blinov aributes to a

number of reasons, from a strong release schedule to an-

piracy legislaon.

“The government’s an-piracy legislaon is hing the

supply of unlicensed music and helping migrate people to

legal services that pay rights holders,” he tells Music Ally.

“Streaming services have oered aracve introductory

bundle deals that helped ence people to sign-up, with

fans then enjoying the experience, scking around and

educang others about how the model works.”

The market also beneted from the high-prole launch of

Spofy in July 2020, a move that Spofy called “our most

successful new market launch to date”. Expanding on this,

the Spofy Russia & CIS press oce tells Music Ally that

in three months in Russia, the company achieved results

After a standout performance in 2019, the Russian recorded

music industry looks set to continue its path towards being

a global top 10 market.

that it had planned to reach in one year in terms of paid

subscripons. “What is also signicant,” they add, “Russia

landed in our top 25 markets worldwide in terms of MAU

and paid subscribers.”

Spofy, as is typical, did not reveal any user numbers for

Russia, although the press oce noted that around 80% of

people who listen to music in Russia use streaming services,

compared to a global gure of 60%.

“Our goal was not just about launching another service but

bringing an experience that adds value to the industry,” the

Spofy press oce says. “For the Russian market we’ve

created almost 100 - and growing - editorially curated local

playlists across some of the most popular genres, regularly

updated by our in-house editors. We saw an amazing

response to the arsts shout-out video that was recorded

by both global and local arsts. In the rst three days we

were on the top of Google Store and App Store.”

What’s more, the press oce says that Spofy’s Russian

launch “encourages compeon and this means the quality

of streaming services in Russia’s highly compeve market

will be growing”.

Russia, to be fair, already has considerable oer in terms of

streaming, with SberZvuk, formed from streaming service

Zvuk aer it was acquired by Sberbank, the country’s

biggest naonal bank, the latest new entrant on the scene.

Konstann Sidorkov, director of strategic communicaons

at vKontakte, the social media plaorm that launched

its own streaming service in May 2017, revealed at the

NY:LON Connect conference in January 2020 that his

company’s music streaming service had 2.5 million paid

subscribers, which he said was “similar to Apple Music in

Russia and also to Yandex [Music]”.

“In general [all the Russian services] we have about eight

to nine million paying subscribers now,” he added. (It should

be noted that esmates for the number of paid subscribers

to music streaming services in Russian tend to uctuate

quite wildly.)

For a country of some 142m people - and 116m internet

users - that sll leaves considerable room for growth, as

Spofy acknowledges. “By 2030, Russia is expected to

become the tenth largest music market in the world,” the

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

28 11.05.2021 •

❱ Russia

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

BOULEVARD DEPO

Spofy Russia & CIS press oce tells

Music Ally. “At the same me, the

number of mobile Internet users

according to Mediascope totals 85m

people, which is only 57% of the

whole Russian populaon, and this

is a great potenal for expanding

the audience of streaming services

and millions of paid subscribers in

Russia over the next few years.”

Russia, in 2019, was the world’s 17th biggest

music market and expanding rapidly, which makes tenth

posion by 2030 seem fairly easily achievable. Blinov

says that at the start of 2020, the Russian recorded music

industry was on track for another year of growth. Then, of

course, Covid hit and while the Russian live music business

has been understandably aected, Blinov says recorded

music “is sll performing reasonably well, all things

considered”.

“Local arsts became even more acve in creang new

music, and we’ve had best-selling releases from Boulevard

Depo, Cream Soda and Feduk,” he says. “I think it’s great

that we’re able to connue to connect arsts and fans, and

drive income for arsts, during this dicult me. I think

we’ll see overall industry growth this year – not as much as

we would have predicted in January, but we’re happy that

there’s sll growth in the market.”

The hope now, he adds, is “that things can get back to

normal soon and we’re projecng strong industry

growth in 2021”.

Blinov concludes, “I’m very opmisc about the

future of the digital music industry here in Russia.

We’re very well posioned for huge growth over

the medium term.”

It’s great we’re able to...

drive income for artists,

during this difﬁcult time.

I think we’ll see overall

industry growth this year

– not as much as we would

have predicted in January,

but we’re happy that there’s

still growth in the

market...”

Alexander Blinov,

Warner Music Russia

Overview of world economic outlook

projections (percentage change)

China

USA

2018 2019 2020* 2021*

* = projected

-12

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

Euro Area

World

Russia

Region/country

Source:

IMF World

Economic

Outlook Update

FEDUK

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

11.05.2021 •

ASIA

AUSTRALASIA

 AUSTRALIA

 CHINA

 INDIA

 INDONESIA

 JAPAN

 SINGAPORE

 SOUTH KOREA

asia/asia/

australasiaaustralasia

❱ Australia

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 25.5m

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $1.248 trillion

GDP per capita (PPP)... $50,400

Internet users - total... 22.3m

Broadband connections... 7.6m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 31

Mobile phone subscriptions... 28.3m

Smartphone users... 20.3m

Sources: CIA World Factbook / Stasta / Data Reporal

Australia : statistics

DEAN ORMSTON

AFTER YEARS OF GROWTH, the Australian recorded music

market looks set to level o in 2020 as a result of Covid-19.

Australian recorded music associaon ARIA announced in

April 2020 that wholesale gures for the country’s recorded

music business were up for the h straight year in 2019, up

5.5% to AUD $555m ($394m).

Streaming made up more than 18% of the Australian music

market in 2019, up 18% year-on-year, with the biggest

increases coming from people over 35.

ARIA made a comparison with 2010, when the Australian

recorded music industry was worth AUD $384m ($272.6m),

with physical sales represenng 73% of the market.

Back in April, however, the inuence of the pandemic was

already becoming clear. ARIA CEO Dan Rosen tells Music

Ally that pre-Covid the industry was on track to connue

its increasing revenues from streaming with slight fall in

physical sales. In announcing the results, however, Rosen

warned that 2020 would “be a year like no other due to the

impact of Covid-19”.

And so it has proved. In October 2020, Australasian

collecng society APRA AMCOS released its Year In Review

2019 - 20, which covers the Australian nancial year of July

1 2019 to June 30 2020. It revealed that its Group Revenue

for the year was AUS $474.5m ($336.9m), up 0.6% on 2019

-19 but down AUD $14.4m ($10.2m) on the budgeted gure

Digital business has held up well and international revenue

reached an all-time high in Australia despite inevitable levelling

off as a result of Covid-19

of AUD $488.9m ($347.1m). For Australia alone, APRA

AMCOS said that Group Revenue for the 2019 - 20 nancial

year was AUD $419.4m ($297.8m), up from AUD $ 417.4m

($296.3m) from 2018-19.

Public performance income was - as you might expect -

down sharply in the APRA AMCOS results, while revenue

from digital sources (audio streaming, video-on-demand,

UGC / social media) was up 17.4%. Internaonal income

was also up, thanks to the success of Australian acts such as

Tame Impala, Sia and Tones And I.

“When Covid hit globally in March this year, we predicted

a potenal drop in revenue of AUD $20m-$30m [about

$14m to $21m), given all live music events ceased overnight

and the dramac ow-on impacts to adversing and

consumer spend and the closure of small businesses,” says

APRA AMCOS chief execuve Dean Ormston. “However,

our digital business held up well and internaonal revenue

reached an all-me high of AUD $54.4m ($38.6m).”

Ormston says that most of this revenue has come from “our

booming mul-territory digital licensing and processing

hub in Asia Pacic and beyond”, with key partners including

Universal Music Publishing, Swedish society STIM, Concord

and “a range of other well-known music publishing names”.

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ Australia

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Dan Rosen, ARIA

The digital side of the

music business is more

important than ever.

Covid has pushed up

digital consumption in

all areas of our lives and

we have to make sure

music continues to play

a big part in gaining

people’s attention...”

Locally, he says that subscriber growth has connued this

year “although not as the same levels as previously as the

market matures” adding that Australian and New Zealand

customers are “ahead of the curve” as strong early adopters

of streaming plaorms.

There are now around 6.65m people who subscribe to audio

streaming services in Australia, up from about 6m in 2019,

although Ormston says the impact of Covid-19 in this regard

has not been as strong as in many other territories.

Rosen adds, “The digital side of the music business is more

important than ever. Covid has pushed up digital consumpon

in all areas of our lives and we have to make sure music

connues to play a big part in gaining people’s aenon.”

In its results, APRA AMCOS warns that the full impact of the

pandemic will not be reected in its gures unl full-year

2021, given the ming of internaonal earnings. So when

will things be back to normal?

“Everyone globally wants to know the answer to that

queson!” says Ormston. “The live music sector will not

recover unl venues can re-open at capacity and state and

internaonal borders re-open. So it’s hard to imagine a full

recovery, let alone growth, within a two year period.”

All the same, he remains opmisc about the future for

Australia and New Zealand. “We need to maintain a clear

vision on the opportunity of Australian / NZ music export -

including both Australian / NZ arsts, and Australian / NZ

songwriters co-wring for internaonal arsts - it’s all about

exporng the IP in the song!” he says.

“As an industry the opportunity is seng our sites on becoming

a net exporter of music. And how do we make that happen?

We connue reinforcing and advocang to governments that

the contemporary music industry is an excing, locally invested

and globally facing industry and that it makes great cultural,

social and economic sense for cross government porolio

policy and nancial investment.”

Revenue growth

(A$ millions)

2010

2010 2017 2018 2019

100

200

300

400

500

600

Digital downloads CD albums

Streaming

Other digital Other physical

Vinyl albums

Total

384.0m

Total

468.7m

Total

526.1m

Total

555.0m

2017

2018

2019

Digital downloads

CD albums

Streaming

Other digital

Other physical

Vinyl albums

Source: ARIA

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

www.musically.com

03.06.2021 •

❱ China

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 1.4bn

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $25.36tn

GDP per capita (PPP)... $18,200

Internet users... 904m

Broadband connections... 407.39m

Broadband - subscriptions per 100 inhabitants... 29

Mobile phone subscriptions... 1.65bn

Smartphone users... 781.7m

Sources: CIA World Factbook/South China Morning Post/Stasta

China: statistics

CHINA’S GROWING IMPORTANCE as a digital music

market is perhaps only matched by a fundamental lack of

understanding that exists about the country. That’s not

necessarily the music industry’s fault: it’s extremely dicult

to get your head around a country of 1.4bn people whose

polical structure is very dierent to what many people

working in the tradional music industry power bases are

familiar with. Indeed, China’s surge in polical and economic

power over the last two decades has le many global

industries discombobulated.

It doesn’t help either that stascs about China’s recorded

music industry are generally seen as unreliable. In his 2019

Midem keynote speech, Mathew Daniel, VP of internaonal

at Chinese streaming service NetEase Cloud Music,

warned that IFPI numbers for China were largely based on

advances; that means they may not necessarily reect the

music industry’s actual performance there. Current IFPI

numbers for China, according to Music Ally sources, suggest

that the country’s recorded music industry grew 16% in

2019 and it is the seventh biggest market globally with a

market size of $590.9m.

A recent report by the Chinese government, however, put

the value of China’s digital music industry in 2018 at RMB

61.24bn, or around $8.76bn, a vast dierence from the IFPI

gures, even if we allow that the Chinese report includes

areas like mobile karaoke that the IFPI does not track.

A lack of reliable ﬁgures makes China a difﬁcult music market to

understand. Even so, its digital potential is vast.

Both reports do, at least, agree that China’s digital music

business is growing, with the 2019 China Music Industry

Development Report claiming that China’s digital music

business increased by 5.5% from 2017 to 2018 while the

number of digital music users exceeded 550m, a jump of

5.1% year-on-year.

What, exactly, these digital music users are doing is sll not

enrely clear. Streaming, as you might imagine, dominates

digital music consumpon in China. The divide, however,

between ad-supported and paid users is opaque at best.

The IFPI, for example, reports that revenue from ad-

supported streaming is greater than that of subscripon

in China – a claim that was met with some surprise by

some local Music Ally sources. “For most of the plaorms,

subscripon income is sll the largest contributor in the

digital music market,” says a representave of NetEase

Cloud Music.

Simon Robson, president, Asia Region, Warner Music, says

that the ad-supported model isn’t really set up to make money

in China but is instead designed to drive trac to the service.

“Within China, the GDP is so dierent from city to city that

it becomes dicult to set standard pricing per month for a

product,” he says. “So despite the ad-supported model not

making money at the moment, it will connue to be used to

drive trac. I’m hopeful that we’ll start to see people in China

migrate to paid subscripon in the near future.”

He explains that there are currently 60m paid subscribers

in China – a number that is the second highest globally

overall but sll represents under 5% of the country’s total

populaon. “That number has more than doubled in the last

two years, which is a really posive sign and shows that the

public are starng to embrace paid subscripon services,”

he adds.

NetEase itself was reported to have around 600m

registered (rather than acve) users at the end of 2018,

making it the main rival to Tencent Music’s three streaming

services in China – Kugou Music, QQ Music and Kuwo

Music. In May 2020, Tencent said that it had 657m monthly

acve users across its three services, of which 42.7m were

paying, up 50.4% year-on-year.

Announcing the results, Tencent also revealed strong

growth in subscripon revenues, which went from RMB

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ China

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

710m ($101.5m) in the rst quarter of 2019 to RMB

1.21bn ($ 173.1m) in Q1 2020. This is an encouraging

result, although it is worth bearing in mind that two-thirds

of Tencent Music’s revenues in the quarter sll came from

‘social entertainment’ (mostly karaoke and live video).

If you needed further proof of China’s singularity in the

global music market, the NetEase representave menons

the importance of Shuzi Zhuanji. This roughly translates

as “digital albums”, although this doesn’t tell the full story.

Shuzi Zhuanji are albums on digital music plaorms that

even subscribers have to pay extra to access, either to

stream or to download. According to one source, releasing

an album like this is something of a badge of pride for arsts

and fans, serving as proof of their popularity.

The albums also work as a form of bragging rights for fans,

according to Tinko Georgiev, VP of internaonal business

for industry services company Kanjian Music. “The idea

behind this is that you could buy mulple copies of an

album and they have gamicaon techniques,” he says.

“Tencent is integrated with [hugely popular messaging

app] WeChat. So if you share on WeChat that you have

purchased 100 copies of, let’s say, the new Taylor Swi

album, then you can gi it to 99 people. They have

leaderboards – with the most dedicated fans showing o on

them. It is a very popular thing in China, a very interesng

way of bragging about how much money you have and

showing that you support the arst for real.” (Taylor Swi,

incidentally, is a pernent example: the Shuzi Zhuanji

release of her most recent album, Folklore, reportedly

made $1.2m in three days on NetEase Cloud Music aer its

release in July 2020.)

adversements on the back of all of China Airlines’ ight

ckets. If the total sales hit 500k, NetEase will make it to

big LED screen in Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan. If the sales

achieve 700k, the ad for the album will be on Beijing Metro

for one week. If it goes to a million, the video teaser will

displayed for a week in Times Square in New York.”

WeChat – which is vast in China and lesser known in

the West – is one of many plaorms that foreign music

industries will have to get to grips with if they want to make

progress in China.

Xiaoman Zou, co-founder of Kanjian Music, told Music

Ally’s NY:LON Connect conference in January 2020, “China

basically lives inside WeChat now. We talk to the DSPs on

WeChat, we x problems for the releases on WeChat, too.

Of course we use email, but if you want to do business in

China, you have to use WeChat.”

Sina Weibo – oen described as “China’s Twier” – is

another key plaorm as well as Douyin/TikTok and Tencent

QQ. Then there is NetEase Music’s own Fan Connect, which

allows fans to comment publicly on albums and tracks. US

singer Lauv, for example, recently took part in a fan Q&A on

Fan Connect.

However, Mathew Daniel told Midem that many

internaonal arsts don’t concentrate as much as they

should on Chinese social media. “Internaonal arsts also

need to put in the eort to make their music relevant,” he

said. “There’s no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twier. One

of the things I always ask labels is, ‘Would you do a release

without Facebook, Instagram or Twier?’ And they say,

Value of China’s digital

music industry

(in billion RMB)

Year-on-year growth (%)

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

10%

12%

14%

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

11.5%

1.4%

6.3%

9.6%

5.5%

Kanjian internaonal business

specialist Yutong Situ gives an

example of how this gamicaon

can work. “For the digital album New

World by Chenyu Hua, a local top-

level pop singer, fans who purchased

the album enter a draw to win

autographed merchandise. Another

gamicaon funcon is that, since on

NetEase Music [as on Tencent Music

Entertainment’s DSPs] customers

are allowed and encouraged to buy

mulple digital copies [plus] there is a

‘unlocking oine promoon’ secon.”

Situ adds, “If the total digital sales hit

270k digital copies, NetEase will run

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ China

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Xiaoman Zou, Kanjian Music

China basically lives

inside WeChat now...

we ﬁx problems for the

releases on WeChat, too.

Of course we use email,

but if you want to do

business in China, you

have to use WeChat.....

the market, such as Latvian producer Tobu, who works with

Kanjian directly.

“Arsts who are making money from their success in the

West and have not yet invested in developing their prole

in mainland China need to do it in the next three-to-ve

years,” he says. “Otherwise they will be le out for good. At

the same me, this levels the eld for more arsts like Tobu

to make a name for themselves.”

Chinese arsts looking to export their music internaonally

are in a similar posion of limited success, with the likes of

Kris Wu, Lay Zhang and Jane Zhang making some inroads

here. Robson, meanwhile, says that Warner China act Tia

Ray “has huge potenal to succeed internaonally”.

Ulmately, whatever the actual size of the Chinese

music industry, there is lile doubt that it is going to get

signicantly bigger as China itself connues to grow in

stature and wealth. China’s response to COVID-19 has

meant that the country’s economy has been quick to

recover from the impact of the pandemic, with the Chinese

economy growing 3.2% in Q2 2020 while many other

countries were experiencing historic slumps.

Robson believes that we could see China in the top three

markets globally within the next ve years “and potenally

even sooner”.

“The populaon is so big and we’re seeing streaming and

music consumpon grow each day,” he concludes. “It’s a

very excing me for the Chinese music market.”

‘Never!’ And I say, ‘That’s exactly what you do in China!’”

Georgiev says, “There is a fundamental dierence in the way

these arsts build their careers in mainland China and they

try to apply it outside. It doesn’t work. And it is the same

the other way around. Western acts try to apply the same

techniques they use outside to China. And it doesn’t work

again.”

It is perhaps for this reason that Western acts aren’t making

the same impact in China that they are in many other

markets. That’s not to say that there aren’t successes. Robson

notes that three or four years ago foreign music represented

about 11% or 12% of the Chinese market and this has now

increased to around 17% or 18%, largely thanks to streaming.

Meanwhile, in 2019, Taylor Swi’s’ Lover shied 1m album

equivalent units in its rst week of release, breaking the

record for rst-week consumpon of an album by a foreign

act in China. All the same, these successes sll tend to be

overshadowed by local arsts.

A NetEase Music representave says that Lover sold

400,000 copies on NetEase Cloud Music in its rst week,

on the way to sales of 700,000 copies on the plaorm. They

added, “Though these sales numbers are impressive, on

NetEase Cloud Music some top Chinese singers perform

even beer. For example, the album New World by Chinese

pop singer-songwriter Hua Chenyu achieved sales of a

million copies, resulng in RMB 20m [$2.9m] revenue

within three days of release.”

Daniel tells Music Ally that the appete for foreign music

in China “is obviously growing”. “From our perspecve, a

large poron of our music listeners are the post-1990s

generaons who have grown up in the globalisaon era,” he

says.

“They are more open to new cultural inuences and diverse

music genres, with wider access to more foreign music than at

any other point in history. Streaming has denitely increased

the consumpon of internaonal music, with our users having

access to more than 30m songs.” However, he cauons that

beyond accessibility, internaonal labels “have to increase the

contextual relevance to feed this appete amongst users, so

there is sll work to be done”.

Georgiev believes that there is a relavely small window for

established Western acts to break China, before their place

is taken by new acts who have made more of an eort in

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Population... 1.3bn

GDP (purchasing power parity)... $9.47n

GDP per capita (PPP)... $7,200

Smartphone users... 500m+

Broadband susbcribers... 698.2m

Mobile phone subscriptions... 1.14bn

Sources: CIA World Factbook , TRAI, Counterpoint Research

India: statistics

VIKRAM MEHRA

AS IN MOST COUNTRIES, the naonwide lockdowns

imposed in India to contain the spread of Covid-19 have had

severe eects on the music industry there over the past six

months.

That’s not because India is a strong market for physical sales:

at $132.8m, streaming accounted for 73.2% of the $181.4m

Indian recorded music market in 2019.

Instead, it’s because the majority of the music consumed

on Indian streaming services is from lm soundtracks, the

releases of which have largely been on hold since mid-March.

Surprisingly, the recorded music industry has been resilient.

Listenership on audio streaming services grew by 40% year-

on-year in the rst half of 2020, according to trade body the

Indian Music Industry (IMI).

The impact of the lockdown has been buered by the

exponenal increase in the naonwide popularity of “non-

lm” music, a nebulous and problemac term used to refer

mainly to pop music created outside of the canvas of a lm.

“Dierent labels are taking dierent strategies,” says Vikram

Mehra, the managing director of the country’s oldest record

label Saregama, and chairman of the IMI. “But there’s a clear-

cut understanding in all of us right now that we need to also

focus on non-lm music.”

The Indian music industry is encouraged by the growth

of ‘non-ﬁlm’ music, but is keen to drive more paid

subscriptions

“Saregama wants to focus more on the regional [language]

aspect because of the inherent strengths we have in our

catalogue. We are moving into Gujara, Punjabi, Bhojpuri,

and Tamil in a very big fashion. Other labels are pung a lot

of money into Hindi originals. [For the rst] me [since the

1990s], one is seeing enough aenon from the label side

and enough interest from the customer side for non-lm

music.”

In India, Universal Music pivoted to completely to non-

lm music a few years ago. At Sony Music, which has a

presence across mulple genres and languages, there’s been

a concerted eort to build a market for non-lm content in

places where there isn’t one such as “the south [of India],

which is predominantly soundtrack-driven”, says managing

director Rajat Kakar.

To this end, the label launched the ‘Madras Gig’ series of Tamil

pop singles in 2018 and encouraged by its success, followed it

up with the ‘Hyderabad Gig’ set of Telugu pop releases earlier

this year.

Saregama and Sony’s focus on regional music is a considered

decision. The segment now makes up 35% of the plays on

Gaana, which claims to have 185 million monthly acve users

(MAUs), making it the naon’s most popular audio-streaming

service.

“Regional music has grown 26 mes in the last three-three

and a half years,” says CEO Prashan Agarwal. “The reasons are

two-fold: as the penetraon of the app deepens across the

country into Tier II and Tier III cies, there’s more and more

exposure being given to consumers of the language that they

prefer. Secondly, the quality of content has started improving

across all the regional languages.”

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

The rise of non-lm and regional music is best seen

on YouTube, for which India is the largest and

fastest growing market – more than 265 million

MAUs in April 2019, and likely considerably more

now.

Of the 18 songs to have topped YouTube’s Top

Music Videos chart for India, which launched in

September 2019, 13 have been non-lm tracks: ve

are in Hindi, four in Punjabi, two in Bhojpuri and two in

Haryanvi.

It’s a trend that’s being mirrored across audio streaming

plaorms, from Gaana’s chief rivals, JioSaavn and Wynk

Music, which are owned respecvely by telcos Jio and Airtel

and also claim over 100 million MAUs, to global services like

Spofy, and ByteDance’s new entrant Resso.

As a result, it’s not just labels that are invesng in “non-lm”

content. Gaana began releasing Gaana Originals, a series of

exclusives it curates in collaboraon with labels, in 2017, the

same year JioSaavn launched Arst Originals, an in-house

label for independent arsts.

As the user bases increase and become more diverse, DSPs

are discovering that there’s an audience for every kind of

music in India, where the sheer numbers – be it in terms of

overall populaon or smartphone users – have made the

country one of the most aracve markets on the globe.

The naon is home to at least nine audio streaming services

including Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music and Hungama

Music, with a tenth, Denmark’s Moodagent, expected to

launch soon.

The IMI esmates these services collecvely have more

than 300 million MAUs, but the proporon of those people

who pay for subscripons has remained a low single-digit

percentage for years.

It’s this stasc that makes India’s recorded music industry,

ranked No.15 in the IFPI’s 2019 Global Music Report,

parcularly vulnerable during mes of economic downturn.

So, while streaming is on the upswing as most of the

country works from home, the knock-on eect of the fall in

adversing revenue during the second quarter, despite an

improvement in the third quarter, is expected to substanally

aect labels’ total revenues for the year.

This could mean that in value terms, India

– where ad-supported streams generated

54% of the monies accumulated from

audio streams in 2019 – could end

2020 with a dip in overall revenue.

Depending on how long the ongoing

pandemic lasts, the IMI could miss its

goal of becoming one of the top ten music

markets in the world by 2022.

“That’s the problem of an ad-supported model,” says Blaise

Fernandes, the president and CEO of the IMI. “When the

economy tanks, the adversing budget is the rst to take a hit.”

Execuves across the industry echo each other when they say

that streaming services now need to move from “playing the

valuaon game” to a business model where the majority of

people pay for music.

Sony Music’s Kakar is of the opinion that pung “compelling

content”, such as “some new releases” and “experiences

such as arst interacons behind a paywall,” will be key to

converng ad-supported consumers.

He also recommends containing the quanty of tracks

available to free users as well as liming free trial periods to

no more than three months.

RAJAT KAKAR

BLAISE FERNANDES

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

“We’re really working with our partners to make sure people

start paying in this eco-system so we get to know what they

actually want to consume rather than them playing the rst

available playlist that comes on the deck,” he says.

There is some debate about the price point at which Indian

consumers will make the switch, however.

“You need to [make it] extremely aordable and get large

numbers,” says Mehra. “That’s the India dynamic. I think Rs19-

Rs29 per month is a very decent value at

which you can get customers.”

Kakar, on the other hand, doesn’t believe

the current rates are the issue. “The cost

of one CD was Rs199-Rs299. Consumer

research back [then showed that] people

bought at least four to ve CDs a year.

Video OTT services [such as Nelix and

Amazon Prime] have shown that people

are willing to put money on the table.”

India’s exisng prices are already some

of the lowest in the world, starng at

Rs99 [about $1.34] for a month on the

majority of services including Gaana,

for which income from subscripons

accounts for a lile over a third of

revenues.

“We think the sweet [spot] for the

Indian market is Rs399 (for an annual

subscripon), which is about Rs1.20 per

day,” says Agarwal. The service is already

experimenng with a ered payment structure, which the

industry believes will be crucial for a price-sensive market

like India’s.

“We have three pillars: ad-free, HD quality and unlimited

downloads,” says Agarwal. “If you only want one of the three

features, you get a dierent price point.

“We’ve also launched language packs, where [for example] if

you’re listening [mostly] to Punjabi [music], you [can] get the

three features for only that language and a separate price.”

The results, he says, are encouraging. Subscripons grew 2.5

mes in the rst half of this year as compared to the rst six

months of 2019.

However, Agarwal points out, “for content to be put behind

a paywall, the enre eco-system has to work towards that,

which means not just audio but video as well.”

That much of lm-crazy India prefers to “watch music” as

opposed to “listen to it” is well documented not only in the

massive viewership of YouTube but also that of the recently

banned TikTok, for which India was the biggest market.

The dozens of new short video sharing apps that have

emerged over the last few months

as potenal contenders for its crown

are the new bugbear of the music

industry, as a number of them have

yet to procure licensing deals from

labels.

T-Series has reportedly sent legal

noces to half-a-dozen such apps

including Bolo Indya, Josh, Mitron,

Roposo, Snack Video; MX Takakak,

which shares the same parent

company as Gaana, the Times

Group; and Triller, which recently

entered into a strategic partnership

with JioSaavn.

According to Fernandes, the

proliferaon of such unlicensed

services is among the key areas of

concern that need xing.

Others include “a relook” at the

provision of the Indian Copyright

Act that pertains to intermediary liability and some nality

from the judiciary that “internet broadcasng” organisaons

are not entled to a statutory licence under the controversial

Secon 31D of the Act, as determined in the April 2019 ruling

by the Bombay High Court in the Tips Industries vs. Wynk

Music case.

While a “deeper penetraon of public performance licensing”

and “expanding the base of synchronisaon”, which currently

account for 10.2% and 5.9% of the total revenue, are

potenal areas for growth, both are likely to be hindered by

the ongoing lockdown.

During a panel at the All About Music conference in August,

Ameet Daa, legal consul for the Indian Performing Rights

PRASHAN AGARWAL

www.musically.com

Quarter Two 2021/Issue 432

❱ India

continued

thethereport ❱ Country proﬁles

Vikram Mehra,

Saregama

Saregama wants to focus

The Report: Knowledge for the Global Music Business PDF Free Download

The Report: Knowledge for the Global Music Business PDF Free Download

The Report: Knowledge for the Global Music Business PDF Free Download

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