The hits simply carry on coming. The RIAA mid-year income numbers, launched Thursday (Sept. 20), present spectacular progress of 10 p.c to $4.6 billion in retail worth in comparison with the primary half of 2017. That continues a development of double-digit progress, pushed by subscription streaming, that started in 2016.
Here are 5 extra takeaways from he report.
1. It’s a streaming world
Streaming now represents 75 p.c of income. It accounted for $3.Four billion of the recorded music trade’s $4.6 billion of income. At this time final 12 months, it accounted for 62 p.c of the enterprise.
2. Growth spurt
The progress of streaming is unimaginable. The format accounted for simply $1 billion of income within the first half of 2015 and the enterprise made nearly as a lot from streaming in the course of the first half of 2018 because it did from all codecs in the course of the first half of 2016. Growth in income from paid streaming is much more spectacular: It’s up 36.5 p.c.
3. Will the nice instances final?
The 10 p.c total progress is lower than final 12 months’s 17 p.c and double-digit will increase cannot final ceaselessly. The U.S. now has 46.Four million subscribers to paid music providers and, in a rustic of 126.22 households that after accounted for roughly 100 million pay tv subscriptions in numerous codecs, it appears onerous to consider that extra individuals can pay for music than tv. But it additionally as soon as appeared onerous to consider that the enterprise might appeal to greater than 50 million subscribers within the U.S.
As properly, paid subscribers grew by 47.6 p.c, whereas the income they generated solely grew 36.5 p.c — suggesting that many shoppers have been lured in by reductions and income will rise if and once they begin paying the traditional fee.
4. Vinyl could have its revenge!
Vinyl retains rising — LPs and EPs accounted for $198.6 million within the first half of 2018, up 12.Eight p.c from the identical interval of 2017. During the identical interval, CD gross sales fell 41.5 p.c to $245.9 million. If present tendencies proceed, income from vinyl might finally make up greater than half the bodily music enterprise. CDs nonetheless offered way more copies, nevertheless — 18.6 million in comparison with 8.1 million.
5. Downloads are (nonetheless) taking place
CD gross sales are declining sooner than downloads, no less than partly as a result of there’s much less shelf house dedicated to the format, however whole obtain revenues (for singles, albums and ringtones) fell 26.5 p.c to $562.2 million. That’s not a lot larger than the bodily market, which accounted for $461.6 million in income.
