We highlighted a trend out of Italy last week, where the charts for the first half of the year were dominated by local acts.
According to FIMI, the organization that represents the Italian recorded music industry, and whose members include Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music and BMG, 19 of the Top 20 best-selling albums in Italy in H1 were all by local artists.
Meanwhile, eight of the Top 10 singles in the market in H1 were also released by Italian acts.
We noted that the Italian market illustrates quite clearly the theory of ‘glocalization’, a term used by ex-Spotify Chief Economist Will Page and his co-authors in a paper published by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The theory goes like this: As an industry, music is more global than ever, but when you zoom in on many individual markets around the world, their most-popular artists and charting tracks are becoming increasingly localized.
That’s clear to see in Italy, and according to a new set of data published on Tuesday (September 5), it’s also clear to see in another key European market, too: France (the world’s sixth-largest music market).
On Tuesday (September 5), SNEP, the industry body in France, published its H1 recorded music revenue numbers for the market.
According to the data published within SNEP’s report, in France, the entire Top 10 best-selling artists in H1 were all local acts (see above).
Furthermore, 17 of the Top 20 best-selling albums in the market in the first six months of the year were made by local acts, while SNEP notes that three-quarters of the Top 200 were French productions.
Meanwhile, SNEP reported on Tuesday that France generated recorded music revenues of €397 million in the first half of 2023, with the market growing 9.4% YoY.
In monetary terms, France’s 9.4% recorded music revenue growth represents a €34 million increase versus H1 2022.
According to SNEP’s new H1 report, published on September 5, recorded music industry revenues in France reached €363 million in the first half of 2022 (see below).
Digging a bit deeper into France’s H1 recorded music revenue data for H1 2023 reveals that streaming was the biggest driver of growth in the first six months of the year, accounting for 77% of total revenues in the market.
Overall revenues from streaming (including premium, ad-supported and video streams) grew 10.4% YoY to €302.9 million YoY in H1 2023, from €274.3 million in H1 2022 (see below).
Revenues from premium, subscription-based streams grew 10% YoY to €231.6 million, and accounted for 59% of total revenues (versus 58% in the first half of 2022).
Revenues from ad-supported streaming grew 28.1% YoY to €35.8 million.
A few other interesting stats published by SNEP were that the 200 most listened-to titles in paid audio streaming represented 10.5% of the total number of paid streams.
Also, the TOP 200 tracks streamed in the first half of 2023 accumulated 3.8 billion streams (from paid subscriptions).
According to SNEP, 60.4 billion streams were identified in the market during the first six months of 2023, up 20% YoY. Of those 60.4 billion streams, 81% were from paid subscriptions.
