The dullness muffled the music – Newspaper Kommersant No. 59 (7504) dated 04/06/2023

The music streaming market in Russia may grow by 15–20% by the end of 2023, players and analysts interviewed by Kommersant say. Thus, it will still not be possible to compensate for the fall of 2022 by 30-50%. According to experts, growth is constrained by pirated applications that allow you to listen to tracks that are not available in legal services, as well as services that allow you to buy subscriptions to Spotify and Apple Music that have stopped working in Russia.

According to Evgeny Safronov, general director of the InterMedia agency, by the end of the year the market will grow in money terms by 10-15%. At the end of 2022, InterMedia estimated the volume of the Russian music streaming market at 5-7 billion rubles; year-on-year, according to the agency, it fell by 30-50%. With the departure of foreign streaming, ecosystems become a growth point: with their development, the statistics of streaming subscribers also increases, adds Sergey Babich, producer of the Colisium International Music Forum: “We at Colisium estimate the growth prospects at 20–25%.

The head of MTS Music, Maxim Petrovsky, also expects that the market volume will grow by 20% by the end of the year. “However, Russian users are just getting used to paying for subscriptions and paid content. If we compare the percentage of the population with a subscription to music streaming in the US and Russia, the numbers are not comparable yet,” says the top manager. Despite this, he expects the service’s audience to double by the end of the year, without disclosing current and forecast absolute numbers.

The music streaming market is growing all over the world, adds Nikolai Duksin, director of the music ecosystem and video content department at VK. “We look at this trend positively and look forward to growth at the end of the year. But such an explosive, multiple growth, as it was a few years ago, most likely will not happen, ”he adds.

Yandex Music refused to give forecasts for 2023, but reported that in the fourth quarter of last year, the monthly listening audience of the service (MAU) doubled compared to the same period in 2021.

The collapse of the music streaming market last year is due to the fact that due to the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, many major labels – Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group – suspended their work in Russia. Because of this, Russian streaming services have lost some foreign premieres (see “Kommersant” dated March 14, 2022). The market was also affected by the departure of large foreign platforms – Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Now several large domestic players are working in Russia – Yandex Music, VK Music, as well as Sound and MTS Music.

Spotify and Apple Music, which left the country, provided more than half of the real money turnover of the industry, emphasizes Mr. Safronov. “The Russian services Yandex Music, VK Music, Sound and others work according to a corporate and partly advertising model, their goal is to attract an audience to their core business. For users, they are free or are a nice bonus inside inexpensive service packages, respectively, they practically do not create a money turnover on the market,” he explains.

The expert adds that not only legal, but also pirated music market will grow. For example, the Play Market and AppStore have services where you can find albums by foreign artists that are not available on legal streaming sites. These are, for example, Zaycev.net and other offline applications through which you can download music downloaded on torrents, Kommersant was convinced.

In addition, Russians continue to subscribe to outdated foreign music streaming through third parties. So, through the Podpiska.org website, you can activate the premium account of the departed Spotify. The user is prompted to change the country in the user’s personal account from Russia to Indonesia, after which they can become a member of the family subscription via VPN.

Julia Yurasova