Music Market Region Profile: Latin America Streaming Drives A Music Market Renaissance

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The 20,000 Foot View

Driven by the proliferation of smartphones, streaming is beginning to gain traction across Latin America, resulting in new forms of music consumption. Whereas interest in physical formats has been steadily falling, most Latin American countries have not developed music download markets, thus creating latent digital demand. Consequently, streaming growth will accelerate over the coming years, although most of this growth will be concentrated in free streaming users rather than paid subscribers.

Key Findings

• Physical music sales will fall from        of recorded music revenues in 2015 to        by 2020 with revenues of        million
• Limited access to international credit cards and the use of dollar prices on the iTunes Store in Latin America stifled download market growth
• The paid download market never got going in Latin America and revenues will fall by an average of        per year until 2020
• Latin America is one of the few regions globally that will experience music revenue growth between 2015 and 2020
• Streaming will increase its share of digital revenue from        in 2015 to        in 2020 with revenues of        million
• Latin America will have        million music subscribers in 2020, up from        million in 2015
• There are ten times as many free streaming users        million) as there are subscribers        million)
• Countries undergoing economic crises, such as Brazil, will see low music subscriber growth but stronger demand for free streaming
• Latin America accounted for less than        of global sales revenue in 2015 but this will increase to more than        by 2020 
• Latin America became one of the most prominent regions of the emerging markets’ digital gold rush but it has not yet fulfilled its potential
• Easy access to free services and illegal sites have held back the evolution of the digital market 
• Brazil and Mexico will remain as the biggest Latin American music markets until 2020, jointly corresponding to        of market share in revenue terms

Companies mentioned in this report:  Amazon, Apple, Lollapalooza, Spotify, Vevo, YouTube