Nielsen released their U.S. Music Year-End Report and music consumption is at an all-time high. There was a staggering increase of 76% in on-demand audio streams but there was also a decline digital song downloads. Overall music consumption is up by 3% which I believe can double with the continued boom in streaming.
Spotify and Apple Music enjoyed a large increase in subscribers in 2016. Together, they added more than 20 million subscribers, boosting their numbers to 40 million and 20 million, respectively. It’s also going to be interesting to see what’s going to happen this year if Soundcloud doesn’t get acquired because they may run out of cash.
Don’t count out physical album sales. Vinyl continued its 11-year increase, reaching sales of 13 million in 2016 – the largest number since 1991. I believe that physical albums simply need to be rethought and it may overtake streaming. Sounds crazy? But who would have thought that streaming would have saved the music business?
Update (via Nielsen)
