Music Streaming Becomes The Next Big Thing

Streaming music has become the new age equivalent of a radio, with services like Spotify, Pandora Internet radio, Jango and more taking up the top favourite positions. According to a US-based market research firm, almost 68 percent of smartphone owners in USA choose live music streaming as their preferred source of everyday music. 

This research, released by Parks Associates, has highlighted and reaffirmed the mobility of music fans in today’s age and time. Approximately 45 minutes of music is streamed everyday, making it a significant number when seen collectively.

Another aspect of this research compared the change in rankings with regard to the popularity of music subscription services between mobile broadband and fixed-line broadband. Further, the research also showed that Amazon Prime Music is the most popular paid music subscription service among US broadband households while iPhone users consumed more media as compared to Android users.

Looking at the carriers, it has been found that Sprint and T-Mobile customers held the highest numbers of daily music consumption at a 75 percent subscriber rate, as compared to the 66 percent of Verizon subscribers.

With these research findings in place, let’s look at the future of music streaming and how it will affect us:

1. Big entertainment companies will consolidate their offers and services to create a multi-platform, blended music space and smaller payers will either have to join hands or be pushed out completely.
2. Because the music streaming subscription libraries are highly commoditized, companies are focusing on ways to sell it further- by working very hard to improve the sound quality and enhance user experience. This means that your favorite songs will sound better.
3. Music subscriptions will enjoy loads of revenue, with labels seeing the most notable rise.
4. Ad supported free music services are not doing so well, which means that music shall gradually shift away from being “free.” Of course, there will always be a place on the internet for it, but there will be increased pressure on music lovers to pay up for quality sound.