Increase in streaming overcomes pandemic slump in Spain with an increase in music sales of 4% in the first half of 2020 according to Promusicae, the Spanish recorded music industry association. The Spanish music industry has managed a 3.99% upturn in global sales, despite of the pandemic impact on the physical market, losing almost 45% of revenues as a consequence of closing of shops during lockdown.
Revenues, according to figures compiled by the association (representing almost 95% of the Spanish phonographic industry) reached €145.1 million between 1st January and 30th June, compared to €139.5 million for the same period in 2019. The modest increase in sales is well below trend growth of 20% but is an indicator of the strength of the digital models that already represent almost 88% of total income.
First half of 2020 statistics
Digital music market revenues grew 18.9% from €106.9 to €127.1 million. This improvement is supported by the increase experienced by streaming in all forms, despite being much lower than expected at the beginning of the year.
Audio streaming subscriptions increased by 17 percentage points (from €77.1 million in 2019 to €90.2 million in the first six months of the year), and free and ad-supported tiers rocketed above 55.7 percentage points: from €10.3 to €16.1 million. Consumers have overwhelmingly adopted streaming. Lockdown encouraged less committed music fans to make use of music streaming platform’s free tiers. Promusicae cautions that in the second half of the year advertising revenues may drop in line with the predicted general economic downturn.
Music consumption by means of video streaming (YouTube, Vevo) has also seen a substantial improvement of 14.9% (from €14.1 million in H1 2019 to €16.3 million today). Other digital products such as permanent downloads of albums or songs, or mobile products registered falls of 11% and 20%, respectively and remain at almost negligible values.
The physical market hampered by the lockdown during the pandemic changed behaviour regarding the format chosen by consumers. Sales of vinyl albums shrank a modest 7.7%, from 7.8 million in first half 2019 to 7.2 million today. The downturn in CD sales is most severe though from 24.2 to 10.6 million, a slump of almost 57%. Vinyl keeps gaining supporters among music fans that prefer physical products and accounts for 40% of sales. CDs maintained a 58.2% market share with video and singles coming in at 1.3 and 0.5%, respectively.
Physical sales barely reached €18 million in Spain between January and June (45% less compared to 2019), while digital revenues increased above €127 million (almost 19% more). This compares to 5 years ago when digital revenues overtook physical sales for the first time.
Promusicae’s President Antonio Guisasola said, “It is absolutely key to put these positive figures into the general context of the music industry, because the slight industry growth this semester cannot detract from the magnitude of the crisis we will be facing in the second half of the year, particularly intense for the live sector, with devastating effects for artists and for everyone involved in the creation of value”.
