Digital Music News - The State of Music Monetization: January, 2011...

The State of Music Monetization: January, 2011...

Sunday, January 23, 2011
by presnikoff

(#midem) Who's paying for what? We've been getting hit with a lot of subscriber updates here and there, including a few at MidemNet this past weekend. So here's the latest monetization intelligence, please share if we've missed something!

(1) Spotify

Paying Subscribers: 750,000 (per Spotify, shared immediately after the Sony Music US signing this month.)
Subscriber Mix: 90% paying full premiums (source: Digital Music News, citing European partner sources late last year)
Royalty Payouts: €43 million ($58.5 million) in 2010 (source: Spotify, shared with ballade.no this month).

(2) Rhapsody

Paying Subscribers: 750,000 (per Rhapsody president John Irwin, January 20th).
Of note: Increase of 100,000 since April, 2010; RNWK estimates broader US music subscription market at 1.5 million.

(3) Napster

Paying Subscribers: 760,000 as of Best Buy purchase (May, 2008). (Current number unknown, likely smaller.)

(4) Vodafone UK

100,000 paying music subscribers (per Vodafone content services director Lee Epting at MidemNet 2011).
Of note: Global goal is 1 million by 2012.

(5) Sirius XM Radio

Paying Subscribers: 20 million+ (per company, threshold accomplished December, 2010)
Monthly Subscription Cost: $12.95 (or higher)

(6) Nokia's Comes With Music (Closing in Most Countries)

Paying Subscribers (prior to closure): 107,000 worldwide, 33,000 in UK (Music Ally, July 2009). Now being wound down outside of Asia, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa.

(7) Pandora

Registered users: 65 million (per Westergren, October 2010)
Active users: 25 million (in September, 2010), average monthly sessions at 11 hours.
Financial Status: Profitable (as of late-2009, per CEO Tim Westergren)

(8) Rdio

Paying Subscribers: Company will not disclose to Digital Music News. Typically, this indicates weak interest.

(9) Slacker

Paying Subscribers: More than 200,000 paying $4-5 monthly (source: Slacker, to Digital Music News late last year)

(10) iTunes

Paid Song Downloads: 10 billion, cumulative since mid-2003 (source: Apple, reported February, 2010)
Broader Story: Awaiting updated figures. In the US, a-la-carte downloads gained a modest 1 percent to 1.172 billion in 2010, per Nielsen Soundscan. Digital albums gained 13 percent to 86.3 million. The global picture appears more healthy, though also primed for plateau.

(11) eMusic

Paying Subscribers: 400,000 (per eMusic to Digital Music News, November 15th).
Of note: Zero growth since 2007.

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Comments (9)

@CrateKings Monday, January 24, 2011

Crate Kings

interesting stats for those who make a living from music

David Jennings Monday, January 24, 2011

Curious that Last.fm isn't included in this list - any special reason for that?

presnikoff Monday, January 24, 2011

There's no special reason actually, these were just 11 I've been tracking/noticing. Looks like it needs an expansion. /pr

YellowBook Monday, January 24, 2011

I guess it's difficult comparing different stores because of the different business models e.g. iTunes sells per 'item' whilst subscription services sell per 'time period'.

Are the above stores listed in any particular sequence? e.g. sorted by total annual revenue or subscriber numbers, or are they listed randomly?

My own angle is that I have a music website and I'd like to know which stores to promote. It would be useful to see the biggest players in each space.

presnikoff Monday, January 24, 2011

@YellowBook

It's just a random order, and yes traverses all sorts of categories and models. I think it would be valuable to break out the categories, but just wondering if I'd have enough to fill each bucket - at least with the available data. Maybe I'll just loosely clump things together next time.

/pr

@musicregistry Monday, January 24, 2011

Stephen Trumbull

Some really interesting stats from the players.

@chriscollie Monday, January 24, 2011

Chris Collie

Spotify has 90% of users paying full premiums.

Joda Monday, January 24, 2011

90% lolol!

Pure fantasy.

Last.fm definitely should have been included.

Paul, you really need to do some in depth reporting on the state of Last.fm.

If we superimpose their revenue with that of Pandora's, user for user, we should get a good picture on what to expect from the pure play streaming services for the next year or so. They both have a subscriber component but neither of them tries to aggressively tries to upsell them the way Spotify does.

@expansionteam01 Monday, January 24, 2011

Expansion Team

Oh gawd...

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