Digital music market sees double-digit growth again
With an increase of 19.3%, the digital music market in Germany once again grew significantly in 2012.
At its annual press conference in Berlin, the BVMI announced that one fifth of the revenue generated by music sales is now attributable to music downloads or streaming.
Following the stabilization that began in 2011, the overall market suffered a slight setback: Overall, revenue from music sales fell by 3.2 percent to 1.44 billion euros. This was due to a further decline in the physical business (-7.7%) and a surprisingly weak fourth quarter.
Revenue from digital business (294 million euros) reached a record high last year with a share of 20.5%. Around 8.4 million people purchased downloads in 2012, with download sales climbing by 24.4% to around a quarter of a billion euros.
More than half of these sales (55%) are attributable to music albums, which remain the central currency in the music business even in the digital age. A total of 112 million albums were sold in 2012, of which one in six (17.5 million) was digital.
