What’s the Current State of Music Streaming Services?

If you thought music streaming was going to get easier in 2017, think again.

Tencent Holdings is China’s largest company – with an imperious market cap valuation of more than $250bn. It also happens to be the world’s third-biggest music subscription business – one which poses a serious threat to the global ambitions of Spotify and Apple Music.

Last year when Spotify took on $1 billion in debt, we reported that it did so under terms that forced rate increases if it failed to IPO. Now, those terms could force Spotify to IPO quickly, which leaves the music industry in a strong negotiating position.

The following data were just put together in a simple excel and just as an example of how data coming from a music streaming platform which uses ‘Subscriber Share’ royalty payment model can be…

There's a lot of excitement within the music industry about the potential for blockchain technology, but there are also a number of sceptics.

The competition is no longer just other music. Consumers' limited time and attention spans are time is split between audio, visual and social media, points out Dorothy Hui, Sony Music Entertainment UK’s vice president of digital.

Along with all the musical icons who died in 2016, so did the last hope of digital music as any sort of sales savior.

Who's laughing now?

Vevo also accounts for a huge chunk of viewing on YouTube, according to new ComScore data.