IFPI report reveals new highs in on-demand streaming habits

The IFPI's new "Music Listening 2019" study (the new name for its annual "Music Consumer Insight" report) has been relesed. Reading it we note that streaming continues to grow: 89% of respondents now use some kind of on-demand streaming service, while 64% listened to music through audio-streaming services in the last month. The latter stat is up from 57% a year ago. And this isn't just about the younger gneerations folk: while they remain the bigger streamers (83% of 16-24 year-olds used audio-streaming services in the last month, and 63% in the last day) it's the 35-64 year-olds who are showing the highest rate of growth for use of streaming services.

Video currently accounts for 47% of on-demand streaming consumption globally, according to the IFPI – ahead of 37% for paid audio streaming and 15% for free audio streaming. The important thing here being that paid audio streaming has taken a bite out of the other two categories in the past year: in the IFPI's 2018 report, video had a 52% share, free audio streaming had a 20% share, and paid audio streaming was 28%.

Then we see that music piracy has fallen. This year, 27% of respondents to the IFPI's survey reported using copyright infringement as "a way to listen to or obtain music in the past month". That’s down from 38% in last year’s study. 23% of respondents download music through "stream-ripping" services, but that’s also down sharply – from 32% in 2018. The IFPI maintains that piracy “remains a threat to the music ecosystem”, pointing to the 34% of 16-24 year-olds who stream-rip, but the overall trends feel positive.