Streaming approaches half of all music industry revenues

It might not be anywhere as near as data intensive as video, but the growing influence of music streaming is another part of the network congestion question which needs to be factored in.

During the days of yesteryear, queues would form around the corner for the latest release of the next chart topper, but gone are those days. Those of more advanced years might look badly nostalgically about the anticipation of getting their hands on the latest Beatles banger (Ask Scott, Ray or Iain for more details), but now gratification is all about a simple click on the mouse.

Music is an aspect of the digital economy which is rarely discussed from a telco perspective, but it will start to have an impact before too long. Video is of course the big headache when it comes to traffic management and network congestion, but there are so many more moving cogs which collectively will have an impact; that is important to remember about them every now and then.

According to findings from MIDiA Research, music streaming is fuelling growth in the $17.4 billion global music industry, with a 39% year-on-year uplift in revenues to now represent 43% of the total revenues across the industry. An increase in revenues is the most obvious way to measure usage in the industry, but when popular streaming services like Spotify offer ‘all you can eat’ music, revenues do not perhaps tell the entire story.

Looking at the bitrates used by some of the more popular services, Apple Music uses a 256 kbps bitrate, which suggest an hour of music streaming would eat up 115 MB, while other apps use multiple options. Google’s music offering has three categories; the bitrate on low ranges from 96 kbps to 128 kbps, medium is 256 kbps and high is 320 kbps. On low quality you could use between 43 MB and 58 MB in an hour, while on high it would be 144 MB. On Spotify, the default mobile bitrate is 96 kbps and for desktop is 160 kbps, while users have the option of using 320 kbps.

In terms of users, Sportify now has at least 71 million subscribers (as of December 2017) and 157 active users worldwide. Apple has said it has 36 million subscribers, while Google has around 7 million (2017), including its YouTube subscriptions. These are not mind blowing numbers, but growth is continuing to be very healthy.

Over the course of 2017, users in the US spend more than 32 hours a week listening to music, up from 26.6 hours according to Nielsen Music research, with on-demand streaming up 12.5% year-on-year. This might not sound massive but streaming music has been normalised for years. The accelerated growth you usually see at the beginning was a long time ago, though 12.5% is still a significant number to bear in mind. These numbers will have a notable impact on the information highway.

Video is continuing to grow, but less data intensive trends are continuing to play a role in the connected era. Music streaming might not be a game changer when it comes to network congestion, but when you add up all the minor impacts of music, gaming, navigation, messaging etc. the headaches start to become a bit more varied. Always worth noting every now and then.