Music Streaming Outpaces CD Sales In The US For The First Time Ever

Music streaming is widely believed to be the new way in which we consume our music. In fact last year we reported that digital music sales was starting to see a decline and now according to a new report from the Recording Industry Association of America, it looks like music streaming has finally managed to outpace those of CD sales.

That being said the fact that CD sales have managed to keep up the pace newer formats like digital sales and streaming for so long is pretty impressive. According to the figures, it is still pretty impressive as it managed to pull $1.85 billion in sales back in 2014. However this was marginally eclipsed by streaming music sales which saw $1.87 billion in the same year.

This includes revenue earned from the likes of Spotify, Beats Music, Pandora, Sirius XM, and even video services like Vevo and YouTube. That being said it looks like digital music sales is still continuing to see a declines. iTunes, which represents the largest slice in the pie for the recording industry’s revenue, fell by 8.7% to $2.58 billion.

The rise in music streaming could also be the reason why Apple is looking to relaunch Beats Music this summer at WWDC, if the rumors are to believed. It might also explain why musicians such as Jay Z are interested in getting into the music streaming business as well.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Audio
Tags: Beats Music, pandora, Spotify