Music sales soared anew last year in the US backed by the rise of streaming, bringing revenue to a level last seen a decade ago, the industry said on Thursday.
The Recording Industry Association of America said revenue grew a robust 16.5 percent last year, marking the first time since 1999 at the dawn of online music that the business has expanded for two years in a row.
Recorded music sales in the world’s largest music market from all formats totaled US$8.7 billion, returning to the revenue level seen in 2008, even if it is still 40 percent below the pre-Internet peak.
The growth was almost entirely attributable to the public’s embrace of streaming, with subscriptions to paid platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and the new service of retail giant Amazon.com Inc growing 56 percent to 35.3 million users.
The biggest loser in the rise of on-demand streaming has been digital downloads on iTunes and elsewhere, which tumbled 25 percent. Physical sales also fell, but were propped up the continued resurgence among audiophiles of vinyl, for which revenue jumped 10 percent.
With the countervailing trends, revenue from physical sales outpaced digital downloads in the US for the first time since 2011.
Streaming has been transforming the music business in much of the world, although artists frequently complain that they see little of the industry’s newfound bounty.
However, Recording Industry Association of America chairman Cary Sherman pointed to a study that record labels worldwide invested US$4.5 billion in artist development and marketing in 2015.
“More than any other creative industry, music companies successfully transformed themselves ahead of the transition to streaming, all while forging stronger relationships with their most important partner: the artist,” he wrote in a blog post.
The industry remains concerned that antiquated laws have capped revenue from advancing further, he said, but he hopes that the US Congress soon passes a bill, backed by members of both major parties, that would guarantee that online radio stations pay royalties for songs recorded before 1972, which are exempt under current law.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS