Global recorded music revenues increase 9% to €24.3bn

Global recorded music revenues increased 9 per cent last year to $26.2 billion (€24.3 billion), marking the eighth consecutive year of growth, with the market driven largely by higher revenues from paid audio subscription services as well as “resilience” in physical music sales.

While the growth rate was less than half the 18.5 per cent upsurge in revenues seen in 2021 – when the industry bounced back from Covid-struck 2020 – it was still the fourth fastest expansion achieved this century, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents the industry worldwide.

Across all formats, Taylor Swift was named the biggest global recording artist of 2022, ahead of K-pop group BTS, Canadian rapper and singer Drake, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny and Canadian singer The Weeknd. Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti topped the album chart ahead of Swift’s Midnights, while As It Was by Harry Styles was the biggest single.

Subscription audio streaming revenues increased 10.3 per cent to $12.7 billion and there were 589 million users of paid accounts as of the end of 2022, up from 523 million a year earlier, the IFPI said.

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Total streaming revenues, including both subscription and advertising-supported plans, grew 11.5 per cent to reach $17.5 billion, or two-thirds of global recorded music revenues.

Meanwhile, physical sales rose 4 per cent, performance rights revenue increased 8.6 per cent and synchronisation (sync) income – royalties from the use of music in TV, film, gaming and ads – climbed 22.3 per cent.

“As the opportunities for music continue to expand, so too do the areas in which record companies must work to ensure that the value of the music artists are creating is recognised and returned,” said IFPI chief executive Frances Moore.

“This challenge is becoming increasingly complex as a greater number of actors seek to benefit from music whilst playing no part in investing in and developing it.”

Her comment referred to the revenue lost to the industry through stream-ripping sites, file-sharing service BitTorrent and cyberlockers (online storage services) as well as royalty fraud, which she described as “theft from the artist”.

But the now crucial role of paid subscriptions in underpinning music revenues has separately sparked concern within the industry that the price of streaming plans – such as those sold by Spotify and Apple Music, which offer access to vast catalogues of music – undervalue music labels’ product.

“We all want the value of music to be fully appreciated and recognised, so it would help if music subscription pricing could reflect the realities of inflation,” said Simon Robson, president, international, for recorded music at Warner Music Group, one of the “big three” labels alongside Universal and Sony.

Subscription video-on-demand services “have been putting up their prices quite significantly”, Mr Robson said.

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Although total revenue from paid streaming plans rose in 2022, the average revenue per user slipped by $2, reflecting a faster rate of expansion in emerging markets – where streamers’ prices are lower – than in more established ones.

The industry believes popular genres such as K-pop, reggaeton and Afrobeats will continue to build on their crossover appeal in the years ahead.

Recorded music revenues grew in every region of the world last year, with the highest growth rate seen in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the market expanded 34.7 per cent. In Europe, revenues climbed 7.5 per cent, ahead of the United States and Canada, which saw the slowest growth rate at 5 per cent.

Ms Moore said it was an indicator of how global the industry has become that China has now overtaken France to become the fifth largest recorded music market, behind the US, Japan, the UK and Germany.

“That is really something and it is the first time really since records began that we have seen any change in the top five,” she said.