Streaming music beats all comers for Aussie listening habits
Streaming subscription music and radio combined is nearly five times as popular as buying music tracks or CDs online.
If you buy into certain nostalgic trends, there was a time when Australians would flock to record stores to buy music, listening to them with astonishingly large headphones, and this was the pinnacle of music. If you remember such times, the chances are decent that your hair is thinning, your waistline expanding... and you’re also part of just over 1% of Australians who still buy their music as actual physical media when shopping online.
That’s the conclusion of new research from Roy Morgan, which shows how Australian music consumption habits have changed. In the 12-month period to March 2012, 6.1% of the population paid to download music tracks and 2.1% purchased CDs online. Fast forward to today, and in the period April 2015 to March 2016, those figures have collapsed to just 4.6% buying tracks and 1.1% buying CDs online.
Meanwhile, in the streaming space it’s full stream ahead, with 19.7% of the population using streaming music services like Spotify or Apple Music, and 9.6% using streaming radio services like Pandora. Back in 2012, those two market segments represented just 10.3% and 6.1% respectively, and while streaming radio appears to have somewhat peaked back in 2014-2015, streaming music is on a serious acceleration path.
Mind you, if you do stream music, you probably stream other content rather than buy it as well. One interesting outcome of the research highlights that while the percentage of folks who buy music tracks to download has dipped, they’re amongst the most fervent purchasers of other entertainment products online as well. Those who purchase TV or Movies online to own via services such as iTunes or Google Play were ten times as likely to also purchase music tracks online according to the research.
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