Listeners changed applications – Newspaper Kommersant No. 158 (7359) dated 08/30/2022

Most of the subscribers of the departed foreign music services switched to Russian alternative platforms, Kantar found out. Nevertheless, it was not possible to avoid the growth of piracy: the share of users who now prefer illegal services rose to 9.8% in August against 6.2% at the beginning of the year. According to experts, users over 30 tend to switch to pirates, who listen to music in albums rather than playlists, and are more sensitive to the loss of foreign novelties.

By August, 14% of foreign music streaming users who left Russia switched to pirated resources, according to a survey among residents of Russian cities conducted by the Kantar research group in August 2022 (Kommersant has it). It was attended by 2.5 thousand citizens aged 16 to 55 in Russian cities with a population of more than 100 thousand people.

As a result of the redistribution of the audience, the total share of users who prefer pirated services to legal ones has grown: if in January-February this was stated by 6.2% of respondents, then in August it was already 9.8%. The share of citizens who use legal music services has decreased from 83% to 78% compared to the beginning of the year.

Spotify suspended operations in Russia in April 2022. Apple stopped accepting payments for Apple Music subscriptions from Russian cards in March, while YouTube disabled access to YouTube Music subscriptions. The main part of their audience, according to the same survey (83%), switched to similar Russian services.

Yandex Music was the most popular choice, with 83% of former Apple Music subscribers, 71% of YouTube Music subscribers and 65% of Spotify customers switching to it. “According to the results of the second quarter, Yandex.Plus already had 13.7 million subscribers, which is 1.5 million more than in the first quarter. “Plus” received some of the new subscribers from the departed music streaming, but this is only one of the growth factors, ”Kommersant was told in Yandex, without disclosing the indicators separately for Yandex.Music. The company is counting on the growth of service revenues by the end of the year.

According to Kantar, the second most popular among former users of foreign services is VK Music, the third is MTS Music, and the fourth is Sound (formerly SberZvuk). MTS told Kommersant that since March the audience of the service has grown by 35%, including due to the departure of foreign competitors, but the latter gave an “insignificant percentage.” VK declined to comment, and Zvuk did not respond to a request.

Those 14% of users of foreign services who switched to illegal services most likely belong to an audience over 30 years old, Dmitry Konnov, managing partner of Zvonko Group, believes: “These users are used to listening to music not in playlists, but in albums and individual tracks that they can download pirates in mp3 format. For the same audience, the loss of foreign novelties turned out to be the most painful – their musical taste has already been established, and it is more critical for them not to see new songs in the service, for example, Rammstein or Madonna. As a result, the audience loses motivation to renew the subscription, although it is not the main one, Dmitry Konnov adds. On March 14, Kommersant reported that Russian streaming services began to lose new music.

A younger audience, according to Dmitry Konnov, expectedly switched to Russian services, as it has an established habit of technologies that they offer, including recommendations: “A user of music streaming who really tried it remains, and pirates create such technical solutions it is too expensive”. InterMedia Editor-in-Chief Yevgeny Safronov notes two factors that act in different directions: “For the user, the completeness of the catalog is important – pirates will always be ahead here, and convenience is the priority for legal services here.”

Valeria Lebedeva