The French music industry grew 5.9% YoY in H1 2024 as streaming growth made up for a slowdown on the physical side, per a new report. Photo Credit: Amin Zabardast
The French music industry grew 5.9% year over year (YoY) during 2024’s opening half despite a nearly 7% YoY dip in physical revenue.
That’s according to a new half-year breakdown from France’s Syndicat National de l’Edition Phonographique (SNEP). Digging directly into the French-language resource, the European nation’s total H1 2024 recorded revenue came in at $463.35 million/€415.22 million, consisting of $371.80 million/€333 million from digital (up 9.6% YoY) and the remaining $91.55 million/€82 million from CDs and vinyl (down 6.8% YoY).
Regarding the latter slip, SNEP emphasized H1 2023’s many commercially prominent CD releases. Moreover, H1 2024 vinyl revenue improved slightly YoY (0.2%) and topped its CD counterpart (down 13.2% YoY) for the first time since the 80s, per the analysis.
But this vinyl growth is modest when stacked up against the U.S. in H1 2024 (17% YoY for revenue) and even the results of other European nations (like Germany and its 5.4% YoY vinyl-sales expansion for H1 2024) where the format’s resurgence is proving comparatively measured.
Shifting to the streaming side, the French music industry in H1 2024 generated about 62% of its recorded revenue from subscriptions ($288.62 million/€258.51 million, up 11.3% YoY).
However, ad-supported audio streaming ($42.45 million/€38.02 million, up 6.1% YoY) and video streaming ($35.14 million/€31.47 million, up 5.1% YoY) also achieved growth, per the report. Especially in light of Universal Music’s recent indication that France’s “paid music subscriber penetration rate” was only 23% last year, the results are noteworthy.
In terms of the works behind France’s solid streaming showing, in keeping with the music-market characteristics of Italy and more, over 70% of the top-selling H1 2024 projects were released by French artists, SNEP relayed.
Running with the point, Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department ranked fifth on the appropriate chart and was the sole non-French album to make its way into the rap-dominated top 10 for H1 2024, according to the data.
As to the information’s bigger-picture significance, the double-digit subscription improvement, while associated with a far smaller revenue pool than in the U.S., dramatically outpaced that of today’s largest music market in H1 2024.
Heading into 2025, the seemingly positive overall streaming trajectory of multiple European nations and a variety of emerging markets will presumably make for a variety of growth opportunities. (Earlier in September, the IFPI unveiled insightful data about the wider EU music space.)
And while subscriber additions are, of course, a stateside objective as well, the next stage of domestic monetization appears poised to prioritize diehard support via superfan offerings and more expensive subscription options.