IFPI report: Sub-Saharan Africa fastest growing global region in 2022

IFPI ranks sub-Saharan Africa as the fastest growing region after it saw a 34.7% growth in 2022. The report shows growth in all of the seven regions it monitors.

The Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), the fastest growing market in 2021, had the third highest growth rate in 2022, with an increase of 23.8% and racking up the highest share for streaming in any region globally (95.5%).

The growth in sub-Saharan Africa was driven largely by a significant boost to revenues in South Africa (+31.4%), the region’s largest market.

Overall, total global trade revenues for 2022 stood at $26.2bn, representing a 9% increase from 2021.This was driven by a significant growth in paid subscription streaming.

Subscription audio streaming revenues increased by 10.3% to $12.7bn with the help of 589 million paid subscribers, who were counted at the end of 2022. Total streaming – including both paid subscription and advertising-supported – grew by 11.5% to reach $17.5bn, or 67% of total global recorded music revenues.

There was growth in other areas, too, with physical revenues remaining resilient (+4%) and performance rights revenue increasing by 8.6% to return to pre-pandemic levels. Synchronisation income climbed by 22.3%.

“This year’s report tells the continued story of record companies’ commitment to their core mission – working with artists to help them achieve their greatest creative and commercial potential over the course of a career,” IFPI CEO Frances Moore said. “That requires an artist-label partnership that constantly evolves and innovates so that it can capitalise on opportunities in more business areas and more parts of the world.

“Record companies’ investment and innovation has helped make music even more globally interconnected than ever, building out local teams around the world, and working with artists from a growing variety of music scenes. This is driving music’s development whilst enabling fans to seize the expanding opportunities to embrace and celebrate their own local artists and culture.

“However, as the opportunities for music continue to expand, so too do the areas in which record companies must work to ensure that the value the music artists are creating is recognised and returned. This challenge is becoming increasingly complex as a greater number of actors seek to benefit from music whilst playing no part in investing in and developing it.”

Besides detailing the music market’s revenues, the report also delves into other aspects of the music business such as trends, artist well-being, new opportunities for artists, and the place of artificial intelligence in music, among other topics.

Warner Music Africa managing director Temi Adeniji is quoted in the report as saying: “Across the continent, we’re seeing users switch from traditional media to digital platforms. That shift is benefiting artists and music as they’re at the heart of mainstream digital platforms from audio streaming to short-form video.

“A challenge for the music industry as a whole is to convert users from ad-based services to paid subscription. In South Africa, for example, we only have around 4 million paid subscribers in a country of nearly 50 million people. So, we have to make sure that more ad-based services act as a funnel to subscription.

Below is an overview of how recorded music revenues grew in every region around the world in 2022:

• Sub-Saharan Africa: The fastest growing region in 2022 with more than 30% growth (34.7%). Sub-Saharan Africa was driven largely by a significant boost to revenues in the region’s largest market, South Africa (+31.4%).
• Middle East and North Africa: Previously the fastest growing market in 2021, MENA had the third-highest growth rate in 2022, seeing an increase of 23.8%, and representing the highest share for streaming of any region globally (95.5%).
• The US and Canada: The region was the world’s largest in revenue terms. It grew by 5% in 2022, with the world’s single biggest market, the US, growing by 4.8% – exceeding $10bn for the first time. Canadian recorded music revenues increased by 8.1%.
• Europe: Revenues in Europe, the second-largest recorded music region in the world, grew by 7.5%, with the region’s three biggest markets all posting gains: UK (+5.4%), Germany (+2.2%) and France (+7.7%).
• Latin America: Saw gains of 25.9%, maintaining more than 10 years of regional increases. Every market in the region posted double-digit growth.
• Australasia: Experienced growth of 8.1%, an increase on the prior year’s growth rate of +4.7%. Australia (+8.1%) remained a top 10 market globally and New Zealand saw a rise in streaming revenues push the overall market to growth of 8.0%.
• Asia: Grew by 15.4% with its largest market, Japan, seeing growth of 5.4% while the second largest market, China, grew by more than 20% (28.4%), becoming a global top-five market for the first time. In a continuing trend, Asia also accounted for almost half of global physical revenues (49.8%).