Global recorded music revenues grew .3-percent to $16.5 billion last year, marking the first increase since 1999. That’s the year, you’ll remember, that Napster and file sharing brought the industry to its knees.
According to the report from the IFPI, growth is being driven by digital revenue, which was up 9-percent in 2012. That digital sales accounts for $5.6 billion in revenue, which is just over one-third of the total. A full 70-percent of the digital total comes from online download stores like iTunes, which means that despite their millions of users, subscription-based services like Spotify and Pandora aren’t generating nearly as much industry-sustaining revenue as some of them would have you think.
Either way, growth is growth. Congrats to the music industry on its .3-percent bump. Don’t spend it all in one place. [IFPI via AllThingsD]
Image via R. MACKAY PHOTOGRAPHY, LLC/ Shutterstock.com
