Never have sales been so good for the phonographic industry.
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2021 is a historic year for world music, as if we all needed to clear our minds in these complicated times. The industry has seen a 19% increase in the space of a year – compared to 2020 – to peak at 26 billion dollars, around 23 billion euros, according to figures provided by the International Federation of the sector. You have to go back to 1999 to find such a good level of activity.
If we take the world’s top 10 best-selling artists, the first step of the podium is occupied by the Korean group BTS, a boy band composed of seven ultra-stylized boys, ambassadors of K-Pop, a musical style straight from South Korea. The American Taylor Swift retains her second place. As for the English singer Adele, whose latest album was released in November, she took the third step of the podium thanks to a dazzling breakthrough ahead of the Canadian rapper Drake.
Paid music downloaded from the internet has brought the sector’s revenues: 12 billion dollars, some 10 billion euros, up 22% compared to 2020. Platforms such as Spotify, Deezer, Amazon and Apple Music weigh today just over 520 million paying users worldwide.
While downloading accounts for 65% of revenue from the global music sector, CDs and vinyl records are not disappearing, quite the contrary. For the first time in twenty years, sales reached a turnover of five billion dollars. The real fashion is the return of the vinyl record, and the phenomenon is confirmed year after year.