Music streaming is the leading force within the audio market, but who is dominating the market in Europe?
With quite a few of the most famous artists of all time originating from the United Kingdom, such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or Queen to name just a few, it is no surprise that the rich musical scene in Britain is also reflected in it being
in Europe. This is especially true for digital music. The digital music revenue in the UK reached 1.27 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, with Germany following in second place with a revenue of 875 million U.S. dollars. While streaming is already the
is set to rise even further. After a slight dip in 2022 to 15.6 percent, the rate is predicted to increase to 16.7 in 2023 and even further in the following years. But as digital music seems unstoppable, what is happening to physical music formats?
Physical sales are still on the decline
Considering sales numbers, digital music is way ahead of physical sales. In the UK, the
revenue of digital sales has reached 1.7 billion British pounds while physical sales decreased over the years to 280 million pounds in 2022. The same is true for other markets in Europe. For example, in Sweden the
market share of digital music sales revenue makes up an astonishing 91 percent, while CDs and vinyl only reached three percent each. The same can be said for the rest of Europe, in France
digital music revenue overtook physical music revenue in 2017, with digital music increasing further and physical music decreasing. Over the next few years, it is estimated that digital music revenue will grow even further, reaching a growth rate of 9.3 percent in 2023 and even 12.9 percent in 2024. However, the growth is likely to slow down, with market revenue only growing by around three percent in 2027.
Streaming services
The popularity of the streaming market also means that there is high competition for consumers among a variety of streaming services. The market at the moment is dominated by the Stockholm-based streaming service
Spotify. In the Nordics,
the streaming site was the most used audio and music video streaming service in 2022. Another very popular service is video-based entertainment
provider YouTube. The various streaming services make their revenue streams through
different channels such as streaming subscriptions or video streams. A less popular format is music downloads.
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