Music Sales Rise!!! …In Germany
The overall value of the German recorded music industry ticked 1.8% from its total size in 2013 and increasing its lead over the UK market that it first gained in 2011. The data, compiled by the Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI)market research company GfK Entertainment, showed that the German market had a total size in 2014 of €1.48bn.
Physical product still accounted for the lion's share of sales, with CDs and vinyl generating approximately 75% of all revenues in Germany last year, with a slow decline of just 1% from 2013.
Digital music in Germany grew as well in 2014, up by more than 12 percent over 2013.
BVMI managing director Dr. Florian Drücke said in a statement that “These are still preliminary figures, but this is good news and a tailwind for the year ahead. We had a strong holiday shopping season and we can see the still (almost) unrestrained passion of German music fans for physical product, as well as the simultaneous increase of digital exploitation." – via CelebrityAccess
I would consider the just 1% decrease in physical sales in Germany very very carefully as a positive indication. Because the reasons for such “positive” sales are relatively extraordinary and most likely won´t repeat themselves:
-Helene Fischer (German “Schlager” music) sold around 2 million alone. Compared to the market size, this is flat out crazy and would translate to around 8 million in the US
-Other big phiysical copies selling acts released an (best of) album in 2014: Herbert Grönemeyer, ACDC, Pink Floyd
This won’t happen again in 2015 and I expect a slump for 2015 if streaming can’t continue to accelerate.