Online music streaming now the industry’s single biggest revenue source
London — Online streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have become the music industry’s single biggest revenue source, overtaking physical sales and digital downloads for the first time, a global industry body said on Tuesday. The rapid growth in streaming music services in recent years has led to a recovery in the fortunes of the global recorded music industry, which enjoyed its third year of positive revenue growth, according to a report by industry trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). By 2014, music sales had fallen by 40% to $14.3bn in the 15 years since 1999, when the rise of music file-sharing service Napster ravaged sales of CDs, and the development of download services such as Apple iTunes failed to offset declines. In 2017, subscription-based streaming revenue accounted for 38% of all recorded music, up from 29% the year before, IFPI said. Figures released in IFPI’s Global Music Report 2018 show total revenues for 2017 we...
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