Mexico. When we ask who has bought CDs in recent times or a radio receiver, the answer has become massively negative. Indeed, the consumption of streaming audio has become the main way to access music content, making it worldwide the main source of income for the entire music industry.
In Mexico, the base of users who access digital platforms and make a payment periodically grew 4.8%, to reach 13.0 million subscriptions by the second quarter of 2021 (The CIU).
This upward trajectory in access to digital audio platforms is accompanied by a sophistication and greater diversity of consumer preferences and habits, in the face of an increasingly competitive ecosystem of bidders.
In this regard, the platforms have sought to compete with various packaging schemes with other services, attractive prices, higher audio quality, exclusive content and productions, free access business models, among other differentiators, to attract new users and retain existing ones.
Digital Music Consumption Habits. The frequency of access registers an average of 5.6 days a week. Of this universe of audiophiles, 67% enter every day, while 26% do it twice a week, 6% only once a week and 1% every two weeks. These metrics confirm the marked preference for music content and podcasts, as well as the intensification in the frequency of access, resulting from the confinement and the greater availability of time at home.
Regarding the devices used to access these applications, the marked preference corresponds to smartphones with 90%, followed by computers (desktop and laptops) and Smart TVs with 14% each, tablets with 4% and iPod with 2%.
Market Share. Spotify continues to hold the first place as an audio platform, accounting for more than four-fifths of total subscriptions (85.8%), as a result of its abundant content offer, the possibility of listening to music with ads in the free mode or without ads in the paid mode, as well as its early foray into the market, being one of the first movers.
In this x-ray of subscriptions, well below are Google Play Music/YouTube Music (3.1%), Apple Music (3.0%) and Amazon Prime Music (1.7%), and with the remaining 6.4% atomized among a wide variety of players, among which Deeezer (1.6%) stands out.
The intensification of the consumption and frequency of consumption of streaming audio content takes place despite tariff increases in recent years, in access to both digital audio and subscription video platforms.
It is foreseeable that in scenarios of economic recovery and with increasing internet access, the pronounced upward trend of access to digital music platforms will continue during 2022 and beyond.
On the other hand, the growing exercise of investments in advertising, in improving the quality of the content provided, as well as its offer with other services, have the potential to boost the platforms provided by technological giants such as Google, Amazon and Apple. So a competitive rebalancing towards these players could be triggered in the future.
It is clear that this market is still far from reaching a degree of maturation in its players and corresponding participations, so we can be sure that, in future years, listening to digital music will be a very different exercise from today.
Text written by Ernesto Piedras of The Competitive Intelligence Unit, CIU.
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