The number of tracks streamed in 2019 was no less than 1 trillion, 10^12 songs, we read on Rolling Stone. And with that, music streaming has broken all records.
If anyone had any doubts about the success of music streaming, this article by Rolling Stone provides clarity once and for all. No less than 1 trillion (or 1000 billion) tracks were streamed. And we’re only talking about the streams in the United States! However, it can be seen that the figures for streaming are slowly flattening out. The market will, of course, become somewhat saturated in this respect. In any case, streaming accounted for 84.6% of total album consumption in the US.
Sales collapse further
What became clear at the same time in the US over the past year, is that single album sales have completely collapsed. It dropped below 100 million for the first time in the history of the company that performed the measurements – Alpha Data. Digital downloads also suffered greatly, with sales down 26.3% compared to 2018. Only one number made sales of over a million in the US: Old Town Road by Lil Nas. Sales of physical media (CDs) also collapsed further. A decrease of 20.9% compared to 2018 meant sales of only 55.7 million slices. A new phenomenon is that CDs are often sold as bundles, where you get a CD when you buy a t-shirt or sweatshirt. Exception for the loss of physical media was again vinyl. Compared to 2018, sales of vinyl scored 10.5% better. Make no mistake, however: these are still relatively small numbers, 10.7 million copies in the US to be precise. And also for vinyl a flattening is visible. Music streaming has – as may be clear now – without a doubt the future.