Digital song downloads slipped further in first half of year
However, revenue from paid subscriptions to services like Spotify and Rhapsody grew
Digital downloads of songs continued to fall out of favour with Americans in the first half of the year, while free and paid music-streaming revenue kept growing, even without much of a bump from the launch of Apple Music.
That’s according to mid-year sales figures released by the Recording Industry Association of America on Monday. They show overall music industry revenue fell a half percentage point to $3.2 billion (Dh11.7 billion).
Revenue from paid subscriptions to services like Spotify and Rhapsody grew 25 per cent to $478 million, while revenue from free services like Pandora grew 22 per cent to $550 million.
Download sales revenue fell 4 per cent to $1.3 billion, while physical disc sales dropped 17 per cent to $748 million.
Apple Music launched on the last day statistics were recorded.
