Music industry grows in Italy despite pandemic with streaming music subscriptions up 33% in first half of 2020 according to FIMI, the Italian music industry association. The lockdown has not stopped the enjoyment of music in Italy although this is increasingly driven by digital which now makes up 86% of all industry revenues. Of this, 82% is represented by streaming, which generated €68 million in the first six months of 2020. This is a significant leap compared to the end of 2019, in which it represented 66% of the total. The growth came from streaming subscriptions which were up 33% in the first six months of the year.
Physical sales were hard hit during the pandemic thanks to the temporary closure of physical retail stores and the suspension of Amazon’s disc shipping services. CD sales declined by over half (-51.44%) compared to the first half of 2019, while vinyl continued to grow reaching a 5% market share.
In the first half of the year the industry generated revenues of approximately €88 million, growing by 2.1% compared to 2019. This result is largely due to revenues derived from the 18app culture bonus which is a government sponsored subsidy for the arts. This created a turnover of around €10 million (August 2020) with some 390,000 young people participating in the initiative. The increase in music subscriptions was helped by the inclusion of Amazon Music streaming services (Amazon Music Prime, Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Music HD) for the first time.
Enzo Mazza, CEO of FIMI said ” In recent months, the share of the digital market segment in Italy has continued to grow, reaching 85% of all revenues. In this context, streaming represents 80%, marking a growth of 25.3% in the first half of 2020. The revenues from subscriptions also show an increase of 33%, the highest ever recorded in the country. And streams too. have grown: in the summer of 2020 the highest ratings ever in Italy were achieved, with over 800 million average weekly ratings – more than 17% up compared to the previous summer season.
In its half yearly report FIMI paid particular attention to the phenomenon of streaming manipulation which has been causing concern to the worldwide music industry. It noted with satisfaction the recent victory by German industry association BVMI with the takedown of stream manipulating websites.
