Streaming, record biz about to boom: Report

Streaming has been a welcome vitamin pill for the record industry, which appears to finally be back to health after years of sharp decline. Spotify and its rivals have been described as a saviour in some corners. But if a new report by Goldman Sachs is to believed, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Analysts from the investment bank forecast global revenues will grow to US$41 billion in 2030 with streaming generating US$28 billion, a 16% rise on its previous estimates. For a little perspective, that figure from streaming alone is nearly double the total sum generated by all formats last year.

Goldman Sachs analyst Lisa Yang and her team published their conclusions in its latest “Music in the Air” series which also identifies Amazon, Pandora, Tencent and Apple among the beneficiaries from the streaming era, while music majors Universal and Sony Music are tipped to grow handsomely as subscription services boom in the years ahead.

The optimistic forecast utterly dwarfs today’s market.

According to the IFPI, global recorded music revenues were up by 5.9 percent to US$15.7 billion in 2016. Of that headline figure, digital income accounts for half of all music sales for the first time with streaming accounting for around US$4 billion, up 60.4 percent year-on-year.

With streaming the engine room for growth, the U.S. recorded music market in 2016 was up by double digits for the first time in nearly 20 years while the Australian market reported an overall lift of about 5.5%, according to ARIA.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.