Apple App Store customers spent over $540m on apps on New Year's Day 2021

"[Apple] App Store customers [spent] $1.8 billion on digital goods and services over the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, driven largely by spending on games. Customers ushered in 2021 by setting a new single-day spending record of over $540 million on New Year’s Day."

Source:  Press Release from Apple, 6th January 2021

Over 10% of songs streamed around the world are by British artists

 "A new analysis from record labels association the BPI reveals that 1 in every 10 songs (10.1%) streamed around the world is by a British artist. The UK’s share of global streaming is four times greater than its share of global GDP (2.2%)1, underlining the UK’s exceptional performance in music. 

The BPI, which represents over 450 UK-based record labels, carried out the analysis based on the music charts of 14 major music markets2, which together account for around three quarters of global recorded music consumption. The 1 in 10 result highlights the extraordinary global influence of British music. The ease of accessing UK music via streaming services and worldwide promotion by labels means that more British artists are now connecting with more fans to build international careers. Music markets previously out of reach, notably in Asia, South America and Africa, are much more accessible thanks to streaming’s global reach and record labels’ digital marketing. Newly-signed artists can now also expect to have a more immediate international impact than previous generations."

Source:  Press release from the BPI, 31st December 2020

176 songs received over 1 billion video views on TikTok in 2020

"The growth of TikTok in 2020 produced some staggering numbers. Over 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views as TikTok sounds. Earlier this month, "The Playlist" was revealed as part of the Year On TikTok: Top 100 retrospective, highlighting the most significant songs on TikTok in 2020. Together, those songs racked up over 50 billion video views on over 125 million creations, and 5 of them reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Nearly 90 songs that trended on the platform in 2020 climbed onto the Top 100 charts in the U.S., with 15 of those reaching #1 on a Billboard chart. Just in the past year over 70 artists that have broken on the platform have received major label deals, including Claire Rosinkranz, Dixie D'Amelio, Powfu, Priscilla Block and Tai Verdes, and dozens more have charted on Rolling Stone's Breakthrough 25. To help take stock of music's massive year on TikTok, we're unveiling our first-ever U.S. music report."

Source:  Tiktok's Year in Music, 16th December 2020

Spotify paid (reportedly) over $100m for Joe Rogan's podcast

"Spotify signed an exclusive agreement with comedian Joe Rogan to carry his popular podcast on its audio streaming platform starting Sept. 1, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. The company is paying more than $100 million for the rights to stream new episodes of "The Joe Rogan Experience" and its library going back to 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the deal.
The podcast will be free to all Spotify users, including paid subscribers and people who listen to its ad-supported service. Spotify also will carry video episodes of the podcasts as in-app "vodcasts," the company announced.​
Rogan will maintain full creative control over the show, which features interviews with celebrities and experts on topics such as neuroscience, sports, comedy, health, infectious disease and culture. After the September debut, all prior episodes of "The Joe Rogan Experience" will be exclusive to Spotify by the end of the year, per Spotify."
Source:  Mobile Marketer, 20th May 2020

Streaming accounts for 80% of US recorded music revenues

"US recorded music revenues grew by 13% year-on-year to $11.1 billion (£8.6bn) at retail value in 2019. It’s the fourth year in a row of double-digit growth.
Americans streamed 1.5 trillion songs during the year, according to the RIAA.
Streaming now accounts for 79.5% of all recorded music revenues, following last year’s 19.9% year-on-year increase to $8.8bn (£6.8bn).
The market increase was driven by subscription streaming in the world’s largest music market. Total subscription revenues of $6.8bn (£5.3bn) were up 25% compared to 2018. Premium streaming now accounts for 61% of all revenues.
One statistic jumps out of the RIAA report: the streaming market alone in 2019 was larger than the entire US recorded music market in 2017.
Subscription services were responsible for 93% of the growth in 2019 streaming revenue. DSPs added an average of one million new subscribers per month in the US, which now has 60 million people paying for services."
Source:  MusicWeek, 26th February 2020

Billie Eilish & Drake 'stream more than all 1980s music'

"I don’t view it as problem solved. There’s been progress, but there’s a ways to go yet. If I were still at Interscope, here are the things I’d be worried about. I’d be worried that I don’t have a direct relationship with my consumer. The artists and the streaming platforms do.
I’d be worried that an artist like Drake or Billie Eilish streams more than the entire decade of the 1980s, according to the information I’ve seen from labels and streaming services. I’d also be worried that the streaming services aren’t making enough money, because that can jackknife."
Source:  Jimmy Iovine, interviewed by the New York Times, 30th December 2019

Spotify has over 100m paying subscribers

"More than 100 million users worldwide now pay for Spotify Premium, the company has announced. Spotify reached the milestone by growing paid subscribers by 32-percent year-on-year. Including free subscribers, Spotify now has a total of 217 million monthly active users worldwide. That includes two million Indian users who joined after the company launched its service there in February.
Globally, the numbers put Spotify well ahead of Apple Music, its closest competitor, who reportedly had 50 million paid users worldwide at the beginning of April. However, in the US Apple’s music streaming service in winning, according to the Wall Street Journal, with 28 million subscribers compared to Spotify’s 26 million."
Source:  The Verge, 29th April 2019

Earlier - 70m announced in January 2018
Earlier - 60m in July 2017
Earlier - 50m in March 2017
Earlier - 37m (estimated) in July 2016

Apple Music has more paid subscribers than Spotify in the US

"Apple Music has reportedly surpassed Spotify in terms of paid subscribers in the US, holding around 2m more paying users. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Apple Music had 28m paid subscribers at the end of February compared to Spotify’s 26m.
Spotify is said to be adding subscribers at a monthly growth rate of between 1.5 and two per cent in the US, while Apple Music is growing at between 2.6 and three per cent.
Though Apple Music has captured the lead in paid subscribers, Spotify still more overall users than Apple in the US, due to offering a free, ad-supported tier in addition to its premium tier.
It’s also reported that Apple Music is also outpacing Spotify’s paid subscriber growth globally – with Apple growing at a rate of between 2.4 and 2.8 per cent versus Spotify’s between two and 2.3 per cent."

Source:  Mobile Marketing, 8th April 2019

Music streaming revenues have overtaken physical sales in the UK

"New digital services are turning the UK into a country of subscribers rather than entertainment buyers as music follows video and games to become a majority ‘rental’ market for the first time, according to figures revealed in the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) Yearbook, published today (March 5).
Revenues for paid-for music subscription services rose 38% in 2018 to £829m with the result that subscription now accounts for 62% of total recorded music revenues. Ownership formats like CDs, vinyl LPs and downloads now only account for 38% of revenues.
Key to the growth in people paying for access to music rather than ownership in 2018 was the work of streaming retailers like Spotify, YouTube and Deezer who continued to convert their free-tier users into paying subscribers, while Amazon introduced many more of its customers to its music streaming service - not least through the success of the Amazon Echo smart speaker.
Games first became a majority access rather than ownership market in 2016.  Video followed suit in 2017 with the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky’s NOW TV.  This Subscription-Video-On-Demand (SVOD) sector grew by 31% in 2018 and is now responsible for over 55% of total video revenues.
Now music has joined the party to become a majority rental market."

Source:  Entertainment Retailers Association, 5th March 2019

Also - US stats here

Spotify spent nearly $340m to buy podcasting companies Gimlet and Anchor

"Spotify  doubled down on podcasts last week with a double deal to buy podcast networks Gimlet and Anchor. Those acquisitions were initially undisclosed, but Spotify has quietly confirmed that it spent €300 million, just shy of $340 million, to capture the companies.
That’s according to an SEC filing — hat-tip Recode’s Peter Kafka — which reveals that the transactions were “primarily in cash,” Spotify said. Kafka previously reported that Spotify paid around $200 million for Gimlet, which, if correct, would mean Anchor fetched the remaining $140 million."

Source:  TechCrunch, 14th February 2019

A campaign on Spotify increased visits to Baskin-Robbins by 12%

"Baskin-Robbins saw a 12% lift in store visits — 4.3-times industry benchmarks — from an ad campaign on music streaming service Spotify, according to data verified by Placed. The offline attribution firm joined Spotify as a measurement partner in the United States, per an announcement.
Baskin-Robbins attributed 430,000 U.S. store visits to people who heard the "Baskin-Robbins Got Me Like" ad last summer. The campaign also drove 47,000 incremental store visits and a positive return on investment. Each ad urged listeners to "Find A Shop" and directed them to click and see the nearest Baskin-Robbins store, per a Spotify case study.
Dave Nagel, senior director of consumer engagement at Baskin Robbins, said Placed helped the ice-cream chain to make more efficient decisions about its media spend on platforms such as Spotify. Placed joins Comscore, Digitalist LeanLab, Foursquare, Integral Ad Science, Moat, Nielsen and Nielsen Catalina Solutions as a Spotify measurement partner."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 21st February 2019

Songs are getting shorter - probably as a result of streaming

"Popular music is shrinking. From 2013 to 2018, the average song on the Billboard Hot 100 fell from 3 minutes and 50 seconds to about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Six percent of hit songs were 2 minutes 30 seconds or shorter in 2018, up from just 1% five years before.
[...]
Why are songs getting so much shorter? Streaming is one the most likely culprits.
Payments from music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music made up 75% all US music revenues in 2018 (pdf), compared to just 21% in 2013. Streaming services pay music rights holders per play. Spotify doesn’t say the exact amount it pays artists for each stream, but reports suggest it is somewhere between $0.004 and $0.008. Every song gets paid the same. Kanye West’s 2010 five-minute opus “All Of the Lights” gets the same payment as West’s two-minute long 2018 hit “I Love it”.
“[T]here has never been this kind of financial incentive to make shorter songs,” tweeted Mark Richardson, the former editor of the music criticism site Pitchfork. Stuffing more diminutive songs into an album is simply more remunerative than having a bunch of long ones.
Still, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how much streaming has contributed to the recent shortening of songs. The length of pop songs had already been falling through the 1990s, before accelerating in recent years. Some music industry observers blame shortening attention spans—but there isn’t much rigorous evidence that our ability to focus has changed (paywall). Others believe that shorter songs may be a result of more consumer choice—songs need to be more compact and catchy to stand out in the crowd."

Source:  Quartz, 17th January 2019

Marshmello played a concert for 10m people in Fortnite

"Yesterday (February 2), DJ star Marshmello played an exclusive in-game concert in Fornite at 2pm ET. Fortnite players could watch the virtual show for free, so long as they made sure their avatar was available at the concert’s location (Pleasant Park).
The numbers are now coming in on the event’s audience, and they’re mighty impressive: according to reliable sources, over 10 million concurrent users witnessed Marshmello’s virtual concert. These people’s in-game avatars were all able to hit the virtual dancefloor in front of Marshmello’s own avatar and show off their moves.
Fans now can, and no doubt will, buy official Marshmello X Fortnite merch – with a hooded sweatshirt setting you back no less than $55. (Youth sizes are, of course, available.) And the official extended mix of the Fortnite set is available exclusively on Apple Music."
Source:  Music Business Worldwide, 3rd February 2019

Video games account for more than half of UK entertainment market

"The video games sector now accounts for more than half of the UK's entire entertainment market, according to a new report.
The industry is worth £3.86bn ($4.85bn) - more than double its value in 2007 - said the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
That makes it more lucrative than video and music combined.
The success is largely down to three games: Fifa 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
The games market has grown, despite the fact that the physical console and PC games market shrank slightly in 2018, and digital also had a modest 12.5% growth.
Chief executive of ERA, Kim Bayley said: "The games industry has been incredibly effective in taking advantage of the potential of digital technology to offer new and compelling forms of entertainment. Despite being the youngest of our three sectors, it is now by far the biggest.""
Source:  BBC News, 3rd January 2019

Music piracy has fallen in the UK

"The number of Britons that are illegally downloading music is decreasing, according to new custom research from YouGov.
YouGov’s Music Report reveals that one in ten Britons (10 per cent) download music illegally, down from 18 per cent five years ago.
This number looks set to decrease. While 63 per cent of those that illegally download music expect to still be doing so in five years, 22 per cent do not. Added to this, 36 per cent say that using unverified sources to access music is becoming more difficult.
This decrease can be in part attributed to the rise of streaming services. Over six in ten (63 per cent) that have stopped illegally downloading music now use streaming services."

Source:  Advanced Television, 3rd August 2018

Musical.ly users generated more than 10m Winter Olympics interactions in first weekend

"Musical.ly, the lip-synching video app with 60 million users, generated more than 10 million engagements during the first weekend of the Winter Olympics with broadcasts from social influencers Nia Sioux (@niasioux) and Ross Smith (@rosssmith) and the NBC Olympics channel (@nbcolympics), according to a news release. Muscial.ly partnered with NBC Sports Group to provide new ways for fans to experience the games, which opened last week in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
NBC Olympics is feeding content daily to Musical.ly users, such as event highlights, behind-the-scenes footage and GIFs. Musical.ly is also urging users to engage in the Olympics experience using two in-app hashtag challenges created with NBC and U.S. athletes such as skier Mikaela Shiffrin, figure skater Nathan Chen and snowboarder Chloe Kim."
Source:  Mobile Marketer, 16th February 2018

Streaming accounts for more than half of UK music consumption

"Streaming now accounts for over half of UK music consumption; 1.5bn weekly streams milestone
The year’s strong growth in demand for recorded music was driven by a staggering 68.1 billion audio streams served through Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and other audio streaming services.  This represents a 51.5 per cent rise on 2016 and a remarkable 1,740 per cent increase since 2012. 
Streaming now accounts for over half (50.4%) of all domestic music consumption, and in December the market witnessed a new landmark of 1.5 billion audio streams in a single week6.  Ed Sheeran was the year’s most streamed artist ahead of Drake, with Shape of You the most streamed song and four tracks in the top- 10. Little Mix were the third most streamed, while Calvin Harris, Coldplay and Stormzy also made the top-10."
Source:  Report from the BPI, 3rd January 2018

Spotify has 70m paying subscribers

Hello 70 million subscribers 👏

— Spotify (@Spotify) January 4, 2018

Earlier - 60m in July 2017
Earlier - 50m in March 2017
Earlier - 37m (estimated) in July 2016

Also - Apple Music has 40m subscribers (11th April 2018)

Google & Facebook own 8 of the 10 most popular apps in the US

Source:  June 2017 data from comScore, reported by Techcrunch, 25th August 2017

Spotify has 60m paying subscribers

"Spotify’s singular focus on music sees it adding subscribers faster than the iPhone company with a streaming app on the side. Spotify has added 20 million paid subscribers in less than a year, while it’s taken Apple Music more than a year and a half to make that progress. Spotify now has 60 million subscribers, compared to Apple Music’s 27 million (as of June).
Spotify’s ability to accelerate its growth rate despite competition from arguably the world’s most powerful company is a testament to the product and community it’s built."
Source:  TechCrunch, 31st July 2017
Earlier - 50m in March 2017
Earlier - 37m (estimated) in July 2016