Music sales in Spain grew 12% in first half 2022
13-09-2022
Streaming consumption rises, with a lower growth rate compared to previous years though Vinyl grows and overcomes CD, however physical sales come to a standstill
Promusicae presented today the figures corresponding to music sales recorded in our country during first half 2022. Specifically, Spaniards devoted 191.5 million euros to music consumption, summing digital sales and physical formats, revenues that represent a 12.4% growth for the Spanish music industry, compared to the same period of 2021 (170.5 million euros).
The rise is determined by the steady good performance of the digital market, growing almost 15% and leaded by streaming, representing already 87% of the whole market and gaining almost 2 points share compared to the physical market last year (85.2%). This is explained by the slight decrease of physical sales (-0.6%), not growing despite the great performance of vinyl, with sales rising more than 25% and already representing more than half the total physical market.
Streaming is at the head of consumption preferences
Results of total market are boosted again by the good performance of digital consumption, and specially, streaming, which rises 15.2% and tops again the list of preferences of buyers when choosing how to use their favourite music. Digital market reaches a total of 166.5 million euros this semester, which involves a rise of 14.6% regarding the year before (145.3 million). 81.2% of these revenues come from audio streaming, in the premium and ad-supported subscriptions tiers (135.2 million), and 17.1% from video streaming consumption (28.5 million euros), share that is still low considering its great importance when it comes to access to streamed music. The remaining 1.7% is completed with permanent downloads of tracks, albums and video and mobile phone products (ring and key tones).
The negative note comes from the fact that, despite the positive results, the digital market growth rate has slowed down significantly regarding the two previous years (in 2020 the rise was 19% and in 2021 it was 20%); and specially if we compare it with the rates before the pandemic, as in 2019 the growth was above 30%.
Vinyls and CDs
Following the «rebound» experienced during the H1 2021 after the slump of 2020, caused by the closure of shops and the lockdown, during the H1 we have seen that physical sales stagnate and, in fact, fall slightly (-0.6%). Thus, sales of physical carriers went from 25.2 million in first half of 2021 to 25 million euros in the first semester of 2022; this means that we are still at a level much lower than those before the pandemic, which were 32.7 million euros in H1 2019, that is 23.5% lower. In other words, the industry did not earn 14 million euros in 2020, and two years later it has only recovered half.
And all that in despite a new spectacular growth in sales of vinyl, which continuous growth in buyers' preferences results in a rise of 25.6% and revenues of 13.6 million euros. Indeed, 54% of physical discs sold in shops are vinyl, for the first time since 1991 on top of sales of CDs (44%), with sales decreasing 20.8% and reaching 11.1 million euros.
Industry assessments
Antonio Guisasola, president of Promusicae, made a positive assessment of these figures and pointed out that «obviously it is good news to be able to keep offering two-digit growing numbers, but it is somehow worrying to start seeing stagnation signals in the recovery of an industry that has not yet overcome a crisis that comes back from 2001. We observe how the world situation and, logically in the main markets, is better than in 2001, and however Spain has not yet reached this recovery and the general economic uncertainty does not invite to optimism, therefore it is going to be hard to return the Spanish market to the situation that according to history, richness, and diversity it belongs to».
«Besides, we face a strong competition of music in Spanish that is not produced in Spain, so even though we celebrate the international success of music that is also our, now more than ever it is necessary to have incentives to local production that allow us to place our artists in this strongly global and internationalised context».
Regarding the physical market, he added: «to this regard, specially concerning is the evolution of the physical market that, in a stagnation of sales situation, faces a price hike of raw materials and distribution costs that will prey on this market niche».
As a matter of summary, here are some of most relevant data shown by first half 2022 figures:
Click to download the infographics.
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