Streaming Soars Globally

Despite the IFPI reporting in 2014 that global recorded revenues were in decline, with overall revenues dropping by 0.4% to below US $15bn for the first time in decades in 2014, it seems that the worm may be turning- this month has seen several incredible jumps in recorded revenue and streaming across Norway, Germany and Canada.

As reported by Music Business Worldwide, recorded music was up by an extremely healthy 7% in the first half of 2015 in Norway, with streaming claiming an astonishing 81% of the market- in comparison to 77% in the first half of 2014.

In the first half of 2015, income from streaming in Norway rose 12.7% from 220m NOK (€24.7m) to 248m NOK (€27.9m).

Elsewhere, audio streaming volume grew by 127% in Canada this year – although it should be highlighted that Spotify only launched there in September 2014.

However, the total volume of streams in the six months from July-December 2014 was 6.3bn and 5.4bn of these came from video sites, illustrating that subscription based audio streaming still has a significant problem called YouTube to contend with.

According to Nielsen figures for the first half of 2015, audio steams were up by 2.1bn to 127%, however video streams grew to 8.4bn (56%).

The German recorded industry also grew 4.4% year-on-year in the first six months of this year, with an 87% increase in streaming.