Latin Americans Are Voracious Music Consumers, According to IFPI Report

The Latin American music consumer is more passionate and engaged than any other music consumer in the world, and is also far more likely to stream music, according to an IFPI report presented during a panel session at Midem on Wednesday (June 5). The findings are also congruent with the region’s overall market growth. In 2018, according to IFPI numbers, Latin America registered a 16.8% growth in revenues, more than any other region in the world.    
 
Derived from IFPI’s Music Consumer Insight Report, the presentation by David Price, IFPI’s Director of Insight and Analysis, is based on an IFPI Music Consumer study of 23,000 people in 20 countries, including Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. 

The results jibe with other reports of Latin music consumption in different territories. According to Nielsen Music’s year-end numbers for 2018, for example, Latin music videos accounted for 18.4 percent of the total video streaming marketplace. But the IFPI results are surprising by their sheer scale and also, offer an unusual, and enlightening, side-by-side comparison of music consumption in different territories, with Latin American’s self-described passion for music equaling the voraciousness with which it’s consumed. 

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Latin American fans, for example, are music “passionates,” with 10.4% of them consuming 25.9 weekly hours of music, compared with 8.1% in Asia, 5.4% in North America and 2.2% in Europe. Fully 47.1%  classify as “Actives,” consuming 23.7 hours of music per week compared to Asia (37.2%), North America (31.1%) and Europe (24.2%).  On average, the Latin American fan spent 22.4 hours per week listening to music, compared to the 17.8 hours the average global user spent.  

Beyond total consumption, Latin Americans over-index in streaming. Not only does streaming account for a bigger piece of revenue (67% of revenues for Latin America vs. 46.9% globally), but it also over-indexes hugely in terms of sheer usage. Seventy-two percent of Latin Americans reported streaming music in the past month, compared to 68% in Asia and 59% in Europe. 

The downside? Video streaming services, especially YouTube accounted for the majority of on demand listening in all four countries, averaging 49% of all listening. But with the value gap, only 18% of revenues come from video streaming.