Streaming Forward
Ibrahim F.
Social Technopreneur | Tech & Economic Innovations to improve world’s conditions, Startups, Products, Business Strategy, Veterinary Science, Science of Learning , Education, integration of STEAM to language learning.
Consumers here are choosing to pay for access to music via streaming services, rathe than own the tracks they like.
The love affair between Singaporean sand music streaming is showing no signs of cooling, as more music aficionados ditch their CDs and MP3 collections in favour of paid subscriptions.
Music streaming revenue jumped from US$5.3 million in 2015 to US$11.8 million last year in Singapore. Mr Ang Kwee Tiang, regional director of Swiss based international Federation of the Phonographic Industry
He said streaming services make up more than half of the all revenue (58.4 percent) in music sales here, marking a shift where consumers now pay for access to millions of songs hosted on streaming services rather than own the music.
Total Music sales here last year were US $20.2 million, according to IFPI data.
“Consumer is moving form an ownership model to an access model. This is in line with global trends,” said Mr Ang.
Worldwide streaming revenue grew 41.4 per cent to US $6.6 Billion last year, outpacing revenue form physical sales (US$5.2 billion) and digital downloads (US$2.8 Billion).
The popularity of music streaming apps has ignited a fierce fight for users and subscribers among the companies here. Major players such as Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal are dangling perks and features to lure users to their service.
Spotify, which launched In Singapore five years ago, recently revamped its features for free users in a bid to get them to sign up for its paid services.
They now have a choice of 15 free playlists create by Spotify based on artists they select.
While they cannot pick the songs to be on these playlists, users can play them in any order and skip tracks an unlimited number of old times – features not in the old free version of Spotify.
Sales figures show that even as the golden age of streaming comes into bloom, physical music continues to fade. IFPI data shows the slow decline of physical music sales which is half those the year before, hitting a new low.
Consumers here spent US$400 000 on physical music like Vinyl records and CD last year, compared with US $900 000 in 2016.
Physical revenues continue to decline and accounted for inly 2% of the total music market in Singapore last year.