The World Of Online Music

I just had a good look at a report from GrovoLabs called The World Of Online Music that was a real eye-opener. The report was from January, but shouldn't be too far out of date a couple months down the line. Here's what it says:

There are a lot of music services around the world. Some cover a lot more countries than others. The big ones are:

Emusic - 27 countries
iTunes - 23
YouTube - 21
Vodafone - 17
7Digital - 16
Spotify - 12
Last.FM - 10
Amazon - 6
Deezer - 4
Pandora - 1
Rhapsody - 1

What's interesting here is that Pandora and Rhapsody still only cover the United States, while Amazon is still very limited as a distributor.

Some other things that came from the study are:

• 16.5% of all Internet users in the US purchase digital music.
• Globally, 17% of all users legally download music.
• More than 3 times as many people regularly visit streaming music sites rather than download sites.
• iTunes now has over 20 million tracks for sale, but Spotify has 15 million and Rdio has 12 million. Grooveshark can access 15 million as well.

What's the upshot? The tipping point from download to streaming is coming, but it might not be as near as predicted. That said, "Why own when you can rent?", will eventually become the motto of most online music consumers.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.