The French music market is progressing, despite a large margin of progress

Europe 1 with AFP 3:05 p.m., March 12, 2024

“Everything is not so easy”, as NTM rapped: with 968 million euros in turnover, the French recorded music market will grow by 5.1% in 2023, a 7th consecutive year of growth, but subscription streaming is lagging, according to figures released Tuesday.

The National Union of Phonographic Publishing (Snep), in a press release, draws up a "satisfactory observation" but puts it into perspective with "an income which barely reaches 53% of the historic level of 2002".

Of these 968 million euros, 620 million, or three quarters, come from digital (streaming) compared to 195 for physical (CD, vinyl), the rest coming from synchronization (films, series, advertisements, video games, etc. .) and related rights.

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Lagging behind the world Top 10 

This is where Snep points to “new challenges”.

At the forefront, “digital growth” is “lagging behind in France, compared to the Top 10 global markets”.

The "10% increase in subscription streaming revenues" remains "too weak to fully fuel the development of the market", while "it is the primary source of value creation", develops the union.

France thus lists “12 million subscriptions”, with “just one million units (more) each year for three years”.

That is to say a penetration rate of 16% for the paid subscription, “one of the lowest” among the main markets in the world.

By comparison, this rate is 17.5% in Germany, 26.5% in the United Kingdom and 30.1% in the United States.

“Accelerating the adoption of streaming”

The growth in revenue from these subscriptions "is slowing down here, while our market is far from having reached maturity", deplores Snep.

Subscription streaming is "an educational issue, particularly in rural areas", insisted Marie-Anne Robert, head of Sony Music France, during the press conference to present the results in Paris.

“The paid streaming market is late, the last thing to do was to tax it,” commented Alexandre Lasch, head of Snep.

His union has always been opposed to the streaming tax approved by the French government.

Spotify France is also considering an increase in its subscription.

The platform is justified by the additional costs “imposed” by this tax.

Antoine Monin, head of Spotify France (and part of Europe), calls in a press release on Tuesday "public authorities to accelerate the adoption of streaming, and to broaden the scope of the tax on streaming to other distribution formats".

Snep, for its part, notes that subscriptions to musical services “are in direct competition with cinema, audiovisual and sport offers”.

He also highlights “a battle to be won” in the face of “increasingly volatile uses, increasingly concentrated on short video formats such as TikTok”.