Demand for streaming content is growing with Australian consumers sighing up for new services such as JB Hi Fi Now, Rhapsody, Pandora, Rdio, and Spotify, manufacturers of wireless devices such as Sonos and Samsung claim that demand for streaming content is set to grow further this year as new Bluetooth and Wireless services are launched into the Australian market.
Research group Parks Associates predicts the number of music streaming subscribers worldwide will double by 2017, and the number of connected audio products will double between 2013 and 2017.
Analysts report a strong correlation between the growing penetration of networked audio products, including wireless speakers, speaker docks, multi-room digital music systems, and A/V receivers, and music service subscriptions to Rhapsody, Pandora, Rdio, Spotify, and others.
“Over the past few years, business models and the prospects for profitability in Internet-based music services have changed substantially.
The market for connected audio devices is changing, Brett Sappington, director, research, Parks Associates. “Since then, the number of users of major streaming music services has increased over 200%, while growth in paying users has exceeded 80%.”
The report Evolution of Digital Music on Connected Devices finds worldwide unit sales of audio products with networking capability have increased more than 170% to exceed 24 million in 2012.
Australian owners of music systems and devices that connect to the Internet are more than twice as likely as average broadband households to subscribe to music services.
In a May 2013 survey, fourteen percent of households with connected music systems paid for music services, compared to six percent of households without connected music systems.
Niv Novak the CEO of Playback Systems the distributor of the Sonos wireless audio system said that demand for subscription content is “defiantly growing in Australia. The backing of Rdio by radio stations in Australia is definitely helping to grow subscription demand”.
