Revenue in Europe, the world's second largest market, grew by 7.5%. Italy delivers an excellent performance above average with +11.1% and over 370 million euros in turnover.
The streaming segment, which grew by 17.7%, now accounts for 66.7% of the total revenue of the recording industry, driven by a 13.7% increase in subscriptions to streaming services compared to the previous year.
The number of premium streams in Italy is now consistently higher than that on the free front, while the segment supported by advertising, including revenues from social media such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, also grew by 36.2%.
The physical sector marks a general -2.2%, but vinyl records are holding up, thanks to a comeback of 11.7%: despite the decline of physical is a natural consequence of increasingly pushed digitisation, thanks to the excellent results of the local repertoire that dominated the album and singles charts in 2022, our physical market remains one of the strongest internationally, ranking eighth.
Synchronisation revenues - which refer to the use of music in audiovisual productions such as advertising, films, and TV series - were also positive, growing by 26.5% to over 13 million euros.
In terms of exports, it was a year of growing revenue for the Italian recording industry, which in 2022 saw a 15% increase in royalty income (physical, digital, synchronisation and neighbouring rights), having generated over 22 million euros in 2022. The increase is driven in particular by digital revenues, which grew by 12% compared to the previous year.
The effects of record labels' investment activities in local repertoire were also confirmed in 2022, in a context where Italian consumers, according to the IFPI Engaging with Music research, spent over 20 hours per week listening to music in 2022:
- 70% listen through the free and subscription audio streaming format
- Over half of young people aged 16-24 use paid audio streaming services.
The success of Italian music is evident: for the third consecutive year, the Top Ten Album has been entirely dominated by local repertoire. In terms of certifications, 2022 closed with a total of 267 certified Albums, 2 Compilations and 325 Singles, for a total of 594 titles.
In terms of streaming volumes (free + premium), in 2022, 558 albums (+79 compared to the previous year) exceeded the 10 million streaming threshold: they belong to 336 artists in total (+34 compared to 2021). This is a surprising gap compared to the results of the previous decade: in 2012 only 137 albums (corresponding to 92 artists) had in fact exceeded the equivalent threshold of 10,000 copies sold (physical + download).
Finally, it is worth noting the positive effect of the Bonus Cultura, which generated over 19 million euros for recorded music last year.
Source: FIMI