Audio streaming volume grows 127% in Canada – but YouTube is king

Canada’s first full six months with Spotify available in the territory has proven transformational.

Total music streaming volume was up to 10.5bn in the first half of 2015, according to Nielsen – which includes both video sites (YouTube, Vevo) and audio platforms (Spotify, Rdio etc.)

That represents 67% growth on the last six months of 2014 – the first period in which streaming numbers were recorded.

Spotify only arrived in Canada in September 2014.

The total volume of of music streams in the six months from July-December 2014 stood at 6.3bn.

5.4bn of these came on video sites, with 925m on audio platforms.

According to Nielsen’s numbers for the first half of 2015 – which you can see below and download here – audio streams were up to 2.1bn (+127%), while video streams were up to 8.4bn (+56%).

Audio might be growing faster, then, but in terms of overall music streaming market share, YouTube’s dominance is only becoming more powerful, as you can see in the below graph:

Audiovsvideocanada

Total album unit sales were flat year-on-year, thanks to rises in sales of digital albums (+9.9%) and a 39.9% jump in vinyl LP sales.

Canada is the world’s seventh-largest recorded music market, according to the IFPI, just behind Australia. Its annual revenue is around double the size of the eighth-biggest market, Italy.

[Pictured: The most-streamed track of Jan-June 2015 in Canada was Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk!]

Screen shot 2015-07-21 at 08.38.37

Music Business Worldwide

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