70% of Spanish music sales are now digital with streaming growing by 50% to reach 2.3 million users according to figures released by Promusicae, the Spanish record industry association. Streaming now accounts for 90% of the sector’s digital revenues ending the year with a small increase in sales. The growth in streaming is being driven by younger consumers taking up streaming subscriptions rather than buying physical formats.
Provisional sales figures for 2018 show that revenues grew slightly above the E232 million in 2017. The uptake of Smart Speakers particularly over the Christmas period contributed to the growth in streaming subscriptions. Physical formats continued to decline although it represents an important volume of sales for classical artists.
Spanish speaking artists continue to dominate album sales with ‘Lo malo’ at number 1 on digital platforms and Ozuna leading the list of most listened to full albums in ‘streaming’. Prometo’ by Pablo Alborán, is the best-selling album. The bad, the feminist anthem of Aitana and Ana Guerra that was close to representing Spain in Eurovision last year, reached the highest position in the top 100 songs of 2018. Rosalía also managed to reach position 2 with El mal querer in the list of streaming albums just below Ozuna. An outstanding milestone that, together with her fifth position in the list of albums, reaffirms the enormous interest aroused by this artist, since her new work was launched only 8 weeks after the end of the year.
Of the 50 best selling albums of 2018, only five are by foreign musicians who sing in English. These are Ed Sheeran in 16th place with Divide; the soundtrack of Bohemian Rhapsody which stands at 27; Love by Michael Bublé at 28; The greatest showman at 35 and 24k Magic by Bruno Mars at 47.
Surprisingly for such an overwhelming interest in Spanish music the top song most broadcast by music radio was Perfect by Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé.
To read the full report from Promusicae (in Spanish) go here.
