H
Harish Jonnalagadda
New data from Kobalt Music Publishing — which represents songwriters like Lenny Kravitz, Paul McCartney, Max Martin and more — suggests that artists are receiving more revenue from Spotify than iTunes in Europe. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that digital music sales through iTunes fell between 13 and 14 percent in 2014, and today's data from Kobalt reinforces those claims.
The report found that Kobalt writers earned 13% more from Spotify streams than from iTunes downloads in Europe during the first quarter of 2014. The statistics from 2013 reveal the shift to streaming services, as in the third quarter last year, iTunes revenues outpaced Spotify 32 percent, but that number was reduced to 8 percent in the fourth quarter.
Kobalt chief executive Willard Ahdritz stated that the revenue increase from streaming services was not limited to Spotify as YouTube was also found to see an increase in terms of size and revenue.
In the US, however, iTunes is still able to maintain an edge, with Ahdritz saying that digital downloads outpace streaming revenue in the country. To combat flagging sales, Apple is said to be integrating Beats Music into iTunes sometime next year.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Continue reading...