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German record industry sees slight uplift in 2013
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 22 January 2014
The German record industry saw a slight uplift in 2013, the country’s record label trade body BVMI has confirmed.
According to its estimates, the recorded music market in Germany saw about a 1% uplift in revenues last year when streaming money is added to download and physical sales, resulting in about 1.45 billion euro in income. The overall increase was aided by a 12% increase in digital revenues and a relatively modest further slip in physical sales of only 2%.
The boss of the BVMI, Dr Florian Drücke, told Billboard: “The successful holiday season and the big demand for physical records supported a positive development in the second half of the year. The strategies of the industry and the diversity of options for music listening have gone down well with music fans. Nevertheless, we are still at the beginning of a path with a lot of unknowns – whether it will be possible to have a sustained increase in the future depends not only on the efforts of the music companies and the music services, but also that of the illegal use of music on the internet”.
After a decade of decline in most key markets, the record industry is now generally reporting slightly more optimistic figures around the world, either slowing decline or slight growth, as digital comes of age; and overall the worldwide record industry saw a tiny bit of growth in 2012. Though recorded music income is still a long way off its 1990s peak, and what is often harder to assess (because such figures are not so readily available) is to what extent the extra artist revenue streams that many labels are now sharing in are compensating for the record sale income decline.
