Recorded music sales in Germany rose 7.8% year-on-year to EUR €2.38 billion (USD $2.58 billion) in 2024, with digital music surpassing the two-billion-euro mark for the first time.
According to Germany’s Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI), digital music brought in €2.001 billion ($2.17 billion at the average exchange rate for the year). That’s up 11.2% YoY and accounts for 84.1% of all music sales in the world’s fourth-largest music market.
Excluding downloads and other digital sales, streaming saw growth of 12.6% YoY, accounting for 78.1% of music revenue, BVMI said in a report issued Thursday (February 20).
“The clear double-digit growth in streaming sales shows that more and more fans want to share in the benefits of this type of music consumption and are therefore taking out a subscription with one of the providers,” said Dr. Florian Drucke, Chairman and CEO of BVMI.
“In this respect, the trend that we are also seeing worldwide is continuing.”
BVMI reported last month, citing data from GfK Entertainment, that the total number of music streams – including ad-supported and premium – hit 236 billion in 2024, up 12% from 2023 and more than double the 108 billion clocked in 2019.
Digital music sales in Germany have more than quadrupled since 2015, while physical formats have fallen by more than 64%.
In 2024, physical recorded music sales fell another 7.4% YoY to €379 million ($410.2 million), despite a 9.4% YoY increase in vinyl sales. CDs still outsell vinyl in Germany, and they saw sales decrease by 17.1% YoY.
“With a 40.5% share of the physical market, vinyl has still not caught up with the CD,” BVMI noted.
Synch licensing grew 41.4% YoY to €11 million ($11.9 million), while neighboring rights, as tracked by German industry body GVL, are estimated to have grown 0.1% to €249 million ($269.5 million). (Final numbers for neighboring rights in 2024 aren’t in yet.)
All numbers are gross sales that include Germany’s value-added tax (VAT).
Druke stressed that the shift to music streaming has benefited German artists.
“As a recent analysis by market research company Luminate shows, German artists are benefiting particularly from this development – in 2024, 43% of the top 1,000 songs streamed in Germany were by local acts,” he said.
German acts are even more popular at the top end of the streaming market. According to an analysis carried out by economist Will Page and Chris Dalla Riva, eight in 10 of the top 10 artists in Germany in 2023 were local.
That trend is relatively new, driven by the shift to streaming. GfK’s analysis from last month showed that, while music streams from the 1990s and earlier are dominated in Germany by international acts like Elvis Presley, Queen, and Michael Jackson, streams of music from the 2020s are dominated by German artists like Ayliva, Pashanim, and Luciano.
Along with France and Italy, Germany leads Europe in the growing popularity of local music.
“At the same time, the supply of high-quality physical sound [formats], which are still in demand, will be maintained across the entire repertoire; the 9.4% increase in vinyl supports the overall positive market dynamics,” Druke said.Music Business Worldwide
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