Until now. Growth in the digital streaming of music helped industry revenues to expand by 3.2%, to $15 billion, last year. That was the fastest rate since 1998, according to IFPI, a trade body (revenues also increased by a smidgen in 2012; see chart). The largest piece of the market was digital, with 45% of the total, whereas demand for those CDs continued to fall: physical goods accounted for just 39% of sales. Subscription-based streaming services like Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music proved especially successful, as the fastest-growing category: last year revenues from these rose by 59%, to more than $2.3 billion. Digital downloads on services like iTunes (which slice up albums into 99-cent individual tracks) accounted for $3 billion of sales, though that represented a decline of 10.5% on the year before. The music industry looks increasingly likely to be defined by services like Spotify, weightless but not cashless.
