German music industry continues to grow despite COVID-19 with a 4.8% increase in sales in the first half of 2020 according to the BVMI, Germany’s recorded music industry association. The industry generated a total of 783.7 million euros from audio streams as well as from the sale of CDs, downloads and vinyl in this period. This is 4.8% more than in the same period last year (H1 2019: 748.1 million euros sales after the full year 2019). This is due to the continued growth in audio streaming, which went up by 20.7% and was able to further expand its position as the format with the highest sales. Video streaming grew even more significantly at 31.3%, but still has a very small market share of 3.3%. CDs (-22.9%) suffered heavily from the crisis-related measures, which also affected over-the counter retail, with a rate of decline more than double that of the same period last year, while vinyl saw growth of 4.6%. Downloads continued to decline significantly (-22.5%).
Overall, the digital business grew by 16.4% in the first six months of this year to a 74.2% share of total sales (full year 2019: 64.4%). Accordingly, physical business (-18.6 %) accounted for 25.8% of revenues. Audio streaming has the largest share of industry revenues with 65.7%, followed by CDs with 20.0%, downloads with 5.1% and vinyl LPs with a 4.5% share of revenues.
Dr. Florian Drücke, BVMI Chairman & CEO said, “The fact that the industry as a whole proved resilient in the corona crisis in the first half of 2020 is good news and a result of the successful digital strategy of the member companies in recent years. It is, however, absolutely essential to place these positive figures in the overall music industry context, because the slight growth in our part of the industry must not distract from the extent of the crisis for the live sector – with the devastating effects for artists and all those who participate in the creation of value here. This can at best be slightly cushioned by the slight increase on the music sales side, but it is far from being compensated for. This is one of the reasons why we support the demands for state aid measures in a spirit of solidarity”.
