Sales Current Events
Sisario, Ben. (2014, September 25). U.S. music sales drop 5%, as habits shift online. New York Times, B3. Accessed 13 October 2014 at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/business/media/music-sales-drop-5-as-habits-shift-online.html?_r=0.
The music sales landscape is constantly shifting, thereby creating considerable concern among music executives. In the New York Times article by Sisario (2014), the current sales figures for different music formats and outlets provide fuel for the theory that sales revenues are dropping because of music streaming services. Digital sales continue to represent the lion's share of sales, with 68% of the market, but downloads fell from 69% to 60% over the last year. Sales of CDs also fell by a full 19%. Concurrent with this trend was a drop in music sales revenues during the same period, from $3.4 to $3.2 billion.
The good news behind what appears to be an appalling drop in CD and digital download sales in an increase in streaming subscriptions, from 6.1 to 7.8 million over the past year within the U.S. The rating agency, Moody's Investors Service, viewed this change as a good sign for the music industry, because the music streaming industry is overcrowded with competitors. These competitors include major corporations like Apple, Google, YouTube, and Amazon, which have near limitless resources to compete for subscriber to streaming services. Moody's predicted that this intense competition will lead to a better return on the holdings of content owners.
While it makes sense that music industry executives would be concerned about the drop in digital sales, consumers continue to love music as much as ever. The digital revolution continues to evolve, so the manner in which music is consumed would be expected to evolve as well. The music industry executives should be paying more attention to how their kids and grandkids are consuming music, so they can prepare for future changes and trajectories in how music is being consumed, rather than struggling to prop up outdated and unsustainable marketing strategies. The consumer is always right.
