- Sub-Saharan Africa recorded music market revenue grew by 34.7 percent in 2022 becoming the fastest growing market in the world.
- SSA growth was largely driven largely by a significant boost to revenues in the region’s largest market, South Africa that grew 31.4 percent.
- Recorded music revenues grew in every region around the world in 2022.
Sub-Saharan Africa recorded music revenue market grew by 34.7 percent in 2022 becoming the fastest growing market in the world in the period under review, according to International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the organisation that represents the recorded music industry worldwide latest report.
Figures released on Tuesday shows that SSA growth was largely driven by a significant boost to revenues in the region’s largest market, South Africa that grew 31.4 percent.
“It continues to be a very exciting time for music in Sub-Saharan Africa. In an incredibly nuanced market with lots of different cultures and music scenes, we can see how the proactive presence and investment of record companies here is driving the development of healthy music markets, creating opportunities for local artists and fostering local cultures. It’s particularly important that we continue to work with governments.” said IFPI Sub-Saharan Regional Director, Angela Ndambuki.
According to the report, recorded music revenues grew in every region around the world in 2022. Asia grew by 15.4 percent with its largest market, Japan, seeing growth of 5.4 percent whilst the second largest
market, China, grew by more than 20 percent (28.4%), becoming a global top five market for the first time.
“In a continuing trend, Asia also accounted for almost half of global physical revenues (49.8 percent). Australasia experienced growth of 8.1 percent, an increase on the prior year’s growth rate of +4.7 percent.
Australia (+8.1 percent) remained a top 10 market globally and New Zealand saw a rise in streaming
revenues push the overall market to growth of 8 percent,” the report indicates.
Revenues in Europe, the second-largest recorded music region in the world, grew by 7.5 percent, with the
region’s three biggest markets all posting gains: UK (+5.4 percent), Germany (+2.2 percent) and France (+7.7 percent).
Latin America saw gains of 25.9 percent maintaining more than 10 years of regional increases. Every
market in the region posted double-digit growth.
Middle East and North Africa – previously the fastest growing market in 2021 – had third highest growth rate in 2022, seeing increase of 23.8 percent, and representing the highest share for streaming of any region globally (95.5 percent).
U.S music sales break record
The USA & Canada region – the world’s largest in revenue terms – grew by 5 percent in 2022; The world’s
single biggest market, the USA, grew by 4.8 percent a – exceeding US$10 billion for the first time – and
Canadian recorded music revenues increased by 8.1 percent.
The global recorded music market grew by 9 percent in 2022, driven by growth in paid subscription streaming, total trade revenues for 2022 were US$26.2 billion.
Subscription audio streaming revenues increased by 10.3 percent to US$12.7 billion and there were 589
million users of paid subscription accounts at the end of 2022. Total streaming (including both paid
subscription and advertising-supported) grew by 11.5 percent to reach US$17.5 billion, or 67 percent of total
global recorded music revenues.
There was growth in other areas too with physical revenues remaining resilient (+4 percent); performance rights revenue increasing by 8.6 percent and returning to pre- pandemic levels; and synchronisation income climbing by 22.3 percent.
“This year’s report tells the continued story of record companies’ commitment to their core mission
– working with artists to help them achieve their greatest creative and commercial potential over
the course of a career. That requires an artist-label partnership that constantly evolves and
innovates so that it can capitalise on opportunities in more business areas and more parts of the
world,” IFPI Chief Executive Frances Moore, said.
He added : “Record companies’ investment and innovation has helped make music even more globally interconnected than ever, building out local teams around the world, and working with artists from a growing variety of music scenes. This is driving music’s development whilst enabling fans to seize the expanding opportunities to embrace and celebrate their own local artists and culture. However, as the opportunities for music continue to expand, so too do the areas in which record companies must work to ensure that the value of the music artists are creating is recognised and returned. This challenge is becoming increasingly complex as a greater number of actors seek to benefit from music whilst playing no part in investing in and developing it.”
