The global record business scored a bill of good health in 2019 [report]

Viral hit ‘Dance Monkey’ was the world’s sixth-highest selling single last year, totalling 11.4 million track equivalents, in what will be remembered as a strong period growth for the record biz.

The good news was that the Australian recorded music market grew by 6% in 2019, slightly higher than ARIA’s reported figure of 5.5%, according to the IFPI’s annual Global Music Report for 2019.

The bad news was that Australia continued to fall as one of the world’s biggest music markets.

Australia’s position as the ninth largest music market is the lowest it has been for 15 years. In 2004 it was in the sixth spot, dropping to eighth the year after, and climbed to seventh in 2006.

In the years between 2007 and 2015, Australia stood steady at sixth largest music market and in 2016, it slipped to seventh and was eighth in 2017 and 2018.

The new top ten includes the US (+10.5%), Japan (- 0/9%), UK (+7.2%), Germany (+5.1%), France (+3.9%), South Korea (+8.2%), China (+16%), Canada (+ 8.1%), Australia and Brazil (+13.1%).

Last year, the global recorded music market grew by 8.2% to US$20.2 billion.

IFPI believes there’s still scope for streaming growth, even if some markets are plateauing.

In 2019, 90% of consumers listened to music via on-demand streaming, spending an average of 18 hours listening per week. 54% described themselves as “fanatical” about music.

The biggest selling acts were Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, Billie Eilish and Queen.

Global streaming revenue grew by 22.9% to $11.4 billion. For the first time, it was more than half (56.1%) of recorded music revenue.

Physical sales were down 5.3%, but this was at a slower pace than 2018. The most positive note for record companies is that consumers are more willing to subscribe to streaming services.

Virtually every country reported this, making for a global 24% growth in paid subscriptions. At the end of 2019, there were 341 million users of paid streaming services, a growth of 33.5%.

Paid streaming now makes up 42% of total recorded music revenue.

Digital income free-fell 15% in 2019 and continued on its road to irrelevance, now only 5.9% of total revenues. CD and vinyl accounted for 22% of total revenue, translating to $4.4 billion.

Some regions are booming, notably, Latin America, growing for the fifth consecutive year.

Its three largest markets are Brazil with a growth of 13.1% — and a market Australia is fostering closer ties with, via trade visits – Mexico growing by 17.1% and Argentina a whopping 40.9%.

In Asia, India was the rocket (up 18.7%), China (16%) and South Korea (up 8.2%).

Europe, the world’s second-largest region, which was flat in 2018, has stirred up with a 7.2% upswing, with the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain as notables.

New Zealand is also expanding, up 13.7% and twice as much as Australia. Put together, both countries saw digital revenues up 11.6% and physical formats falling 20.4%.