Mark Savage
Music correspondent
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Taylor Swift was the most broadcast artist in the world last year
After years of explosive growth, the musical streaming market in the United Kingdom is level, suggests new research.
Almost half of the population, 32.4 million people, has now registered applications like Spotify and Apple Music, according to analysts from the Midia Research music industry.
It is considerably more than the 20 million who pay for video streaming, but the number of new subscribers is disintegrating. About 1.25 million new customers followed a plan last year, said Midia, representing growth of 4%. In 2020, this figure was 9%.
Midia says that the slowdown will result in higher prices. “If you are not growing users, what do you do? You force them to pay more,” said the company’s general manager Mark Mulligan.
Spotify has already increased the price of its premium plan in the United Kingdom. After years of detention at £ 9.99, it increased to £ 10.99 in the summer of 2024 and £ 11.99 last May.
The Swedish company would also have introduced a new high fidelity streaming option this year, which could cost £ 5 more per month.
Amazon Music, which is the second streaming platform in the United Kingdom, also increased its prices in January.
Mulligan said it was only the beginning.
“In the coming years, expect a continuous and concerted effort from the music industry, to find new ways to bring subscribers to pay more money.”
Sony Music president of Global Digital Business, Dennis Cooker, maintains that such increases are essential.
“Spotify has publicly commented that their intention was to launch a higher price level. I am counting on this, and assuming that it will happen,” he said during an event organized by the organization of the IFPI registration industry last week.
According to MIDIA, an alternative would be the introduction of a “really cheap and entry -level” subscription to attract new users; But Cooker rejected this idea.
“We really tried with average prices and, frankly, we had trouble making them work,” he said.
Users who do not want to pay can already access a “fairly robust” offer on services supported by advertising like YouTube; While a monthly subscription offers millions of songs to everyone.
“Finding something in the middle that you can really explain to consumers and that is different from what is already offered has been really, really difficult,” he said.
Outside the United Kingdom, the latest Midia report has shown that the number of people subscribing to the music streaming services increased by 11.6% in annual shift.
Most of the growth came from emerging markets in Africa and India. China has also extended its lead as the largest streaming market in the world, with 190 million subscribers.
Mulligan predicted that the growth of streaming services outside Europe and America could change the way we listen to music.
“We will see a cultural change where these massive base installed bases for the installation of streaming users in the South world will shape listening habits in the West.
“As they become larger markets, more people (in these countries) will want to become artists and more people will want to set up record companies.
“So more music will be made, more music will be exported and there will be a kind of cultural rebalancing.”
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The Afrobeats star Burna Boy has led a new wave of music worldwide in Africa
The change has already started. According to IFPI, sub -Saharan Africa was the fastest music market in the world last year, revenues exceeding $ 100 million (£ 770,000) for the first time.
The genres like Afrobeats and Amapiano are already extremely popular and, last year, the Nigerian star Burna Boy became the first African artist to make the headlines in the United Kingdom.
South Korea is also a power – representing 45% of all the physical albums sold in the past year – while Latin America has some of the world’s greatest recording artists, including Bad Bunny, Karol G and Peso Pluma.
Consequently, the historical musical domination of the United Kingdom is declining.
Last year, British musicians failed to appear in the top 10 most sold singles or albums in the world, for the first time in two decades.
“In terms of basic, the democratization of the music we have seen, thanks to streaming, is wonderful – but it is a very congested space,” said Victoria Oakley, head of IFPI, at BBC News.
“The United Kingdom sees revolutionary artists like Myles Smith and Lola Young,” she added, “but this trip is rarely on the success of the night these days.
“He can take five or six or seven years to get to the point where you are a big familiar name, earning awards and number one albums.
“So the work takes place behind the scenes. It just requires more navigation than before.”
