The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has released its annual report, detailing what happened in the music industry worldwide in 2019. Arashi is on the cover, prominently featured between Taylor Swift and Lizzo, due to having the best selling album globally of 2019.

Titled “Global Music Report: The Industry in 2020”, the report says that the worldwide music industry saw revenue grow for the fifth consecutive year, by 8.2% in 2019, totalling $20.2 billion. This is the first time the $20 billion mark has been reached since 2004.

Streaming revenue grew by 22.9%, and now makes up 56.1% of global revenue, at $11.4 billion. This was driven by a 24.1% growth in paid subscription revenue, which is the result of a 33.5% increase in the number of paid subscribers. At the end of 2019, there were 341 million users of paid streaming services worldwide, accounting for 42% of global revenue. Ad-supported streaming services make up of the remaining 14.1% of global revenue that streaming accounts for.

After streaming, the next biggest source of revenue is physical, which now makes up 21.6% of global revenue, at $4.4 billion. This is down 5.3% compared to 2018.

Physical is followed by performance rights, which makes up 12.6% of global revenue, at $2.6 billion, a fall of 3.6%.

After peformance rights is downloads and other digital, which now makes up 7.2% of global revenue. This segment brought in $1.2 billion last year, a 15.3% decline.

The last segment is synchronization. It makes up 2.4% of global revenue at $500 million. This segment grew by 5.8% compared to 2018.

For the fifth consecutive year, Asia saw growth, with an increase of 3.4%. However, this growth was slower than 2018’s 12.3% rise. This was largely due to Japan’s decrease of .9% in 2019, which was caused by a decrease in its main segment, physical, of 4.8%. When Japan isn’t included, Asian revenue grew by 11.5%, largely due to the increased use of paid subscription streaming services.

Due to the size of Japan’s market compared to that of the other Asian ones, physical remains the largest segment of Asia’s revenue, at 48.5%. Last year marks the first time phyiscal’s share of revenue has dipped below 50%. South Korea, China, and India, the three biggest Asian markets after Japan, saw strong growth of 8.2%, 16%, and 18.7%, respectively. Performance rights increased 4% in Asia in 2019. Largely due to Japan, synchronization grew 23.5%.

The top 10 music markets in order are the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, China, Canada, Australia, and Brazil. This is unchanged from 2018, with the exception of Canada and Australia switching places. All of these markets saw double digit growth in paid subscription streaming revenue.

Source