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German record industry sees some growth

By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 20 August 2013

Following the news earlier this year that the global record industry saw slight growth in 2012, for the first time in over a decade, the trade body for the German record industry says that revenues there were up year-on-year for the first half of 2013, again the first time there has been growth in over ten years.

According to BVMI, digital revenue was up 16% for the first half of the year, helping offset the latest 2.5% decline in physical product revenues, so that overall monies were up 1.5%.

The positive impact of the digital boom comes despite money from download and streaming services still only accounting for about a quarter of income overall for German record companies. Digital services, and especially streaming services, have taken longer to take off in Germany, in part because of the German music publishing sector’s collecting society GEMA’s reluctance to approve new business models.

Welcoming his industry’s return to growth, BVMI MD Florian Drücke told reporters: “Music usage is shifting to digital formats, but unlike in many other markets, here in Germany this shift is not occurring at the expense of the overall market, but indicates a market diversification with positive portents”.

Meanwhile Frank Briegmann, who heads up Universal Music’s Central Europe operations, told Billboard: “Music is back-again – not least of all in economic terms. There is virtually no technology vendor or platform operator who can afford to do without an attractive offer of music. After a period in which the main focus was on technological innovation, content is king again. At the same time, music is not only attractive legal content which is available on the net and elsewhere but has also become an interesting investment again”.