AFTER US SLOWDOWN, NOW AUDIO STREAMING GROWTH SHRINKS IN THE UK
Those who predicted that the growth of audio streaming would begin to slow down in the world’s biggest music territories in 2019 were correct. And while the margin of that deceleration is nothing to panic about just yet, it does already hint that, for the global recorded music business to reach its potential in future, it’s going to need to ramp up its progress in so-called ‘developing’ markets. Recently reported that on-demand audio streaming volume in the United States reached 333.5bn plays in the first six months of the year. As revealed by Nielsen data, that was up 27.8% on the 261.0bn streams recorded in the equivalent period of 2018. However, in real growth terms, this was a less positive story. In H1 2018, US streaming volumes rose by 76.6bn year-on-year, but in H1 2019, Nielsen’s stats showed, this annual increase had fallen to 72.5bn – down by over a billion plays. Dead On Time (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack...