In the U.S., there was a significant increase in overall consumption, an outstanding 12.8% over 2016 that marks the third year in a row with increasing growth. Audio stream consumption continued its explosive expansion with a 50.3% increase to 377B streams, an amazing 127B more streams than in 2016. Subscription streams are now at an impressive 80% of total audio streams, up from 76% in 2016. Both album sales and song sales continued to decline, 14.6% and 23.2% respectively, but physical sales declined only 7%, while vinyl sales continued its impressive growth with an increase of 20.1% over 2016 and now comprises 10.4% of all physical album sales.
99% of those 377 billion streams were from the top 10% of 2017’s most-streamed tracks. Less than 1% of streams accounted for all other music.
In Canada, there was a solid increase in overall consumption, 3.2% over 2016. Audio stream consumption continued its impressive growth with a 70% increase to 38.0B streams, almost 16B more streams than in 2016. Subscription streams are now at an impressive 78.9% of total audio streams, up from 71.9% in 2016. Both album sales and song sales continued to decline, 18.9% and 23.5% respectively. Physical sales declined 27.2%, primarily due to the HMV store closure. That also affected vinyl sales, which decreased 9.3% over 2016.
