iTunes Accounted For 60 Percent Of Digital Music Revenues In 2012

It was only yesterday that we found out that music streaming apps like Spotify and Rdio are helping kill music piracy, as the music industry reported that global revenue rose in 2012 for the first time in 13 years.

Well, according to a different report that crunched some serious numbers, Apple’s iTunes Store played a big part in the music industry’s growth, by accounting for 60 percent of global digital music revenues.

Horace Dediu at Asymco reported today that iTunes accounted for 60% of total industry revenues in 2012.

In 2012, global music revenues were reported at $16.5 billion, with $5.6 billion coming from digital downloads. Of that $5.6 billion in digital downloads, Apple paid the record labels $3.4 billion for iTunes sales, which equals about 60% of the total digital revenues.

Not only did record sales go up last year, but piracy was down because more listeners are choosing to stream albums off of services like Rdio and Spotify rather than download them illegally.

It’s been rumored that Apple is looking to create a Pandora-like iRadio service so they can compete with Rdio and Spotify. As to when Apple’s iRadio service will launch, well it was rumored that it would come out in 2012, but that didn’t happen, so maybe we’ll be treated to it in 2013.

Source: Asymco

Via: AppAdvice