7digital Blog

For a deeper dive into 7digital’s chart topping releases, we wanted to show how local markets are engaging with the world’s music.   Being available globally with dedicated stores in over 37 countries allows us to investigate interesting trends across territories and analyse music consumption similarities and differences.  We weren’t on a quest for industry shaking results but just to see how tastes are leaning these days. In this increasingly globalised world, where digital access breaks down boundaries for the average music lover, we must stay mindful of the importance of local content. Genre remains very subjective when you start to look at different countries’ data, however, for this analysis we looked at genres and music tastes per country. A new year’s resolution for 7digital will be to continue to look closely at this space for interesting changes and trends.

Interestingly enough, in all of the countries we looked at (except for the US), artists from the UK ranked very high.   This shows that international shoppers like us for our UK affiliation as well because our strong editorial often features artists from our home country.

In the UK pop and rock are the most popular with top artists evenly split between artists from the UK and the rest of the world.  For Ireland we see a more even split across all genres than other major markets with mostly UK and US artists.  In both countries compilation albums have sold very well.

In the US, hip hop/rap and pop are most popular and artists are almost exclusively US artists whereas with our friends to the north in Canada pop and pop/rock are most popular with predominantly US and UK artists.

In France no particular genre dominates the charts and there is a fairly even split between local artists and those from the US and UK.  In Luxembourg our customers prefer more electronic and R&B music than other markets.  Artists are mainly European (France & Germany) as well as from the US and UK.

In Germany no genre dominates and about a third of the best-selling artists are local.

In Spain we see predominantly local pop/Latin artists whereas in Italy rock and then pop are more popular, about evenly split between local and US/UK artists.

And that wraps up our summary!   Hope you have a great holiday and look out for our Who To Watch in 2013 post coming soon…

Lovefrom7

2012 has been a great year at 7digital, and mobile in particular has been a standout area of change and growth. We’ve seen a 277% increase in our mobile user base, with 67% of downloads now coming though tablets and phones. We added a Windows Phone app to our mobile line up, and watched our Android install base surpass the 4 million mark.

It’s not just digital music that’s seeing this growth; ebooks, magazines, newspapers, and TV and movies are all continuing to attract attention from readers, listeners and viewers. New mobile and connected devices have driven this, in part, and as more devices come to market, it becomes increasingly important to enable access to a user’s content on multiple devices. Right now you may have a music collection on your PC and need to get it to a smartphone or MP3 player. It won’t be long until you also want access to the same collection in the car, on your connected TV and even your fridge.

The music industry is guilty of getting hung-up on the wrong debate; that of access vs ownership. Subscription services are often labelled as ‘access’, but in reality they are ‘rental’ services. Once you stop paying the monthly subscription, you lose your carefully curated collection. As mobile and connected device growth continues in 2013 on beyond, the right levels of access to digital content you own will be the winning combination.

Next up, our top selling tracks and albums for 2012…