Polaris Nordic’s Digital Music Survey 2018, published recently, reveals a couple of mind stirring data regarding the consumption of digital music in the Nordic countries which include Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland.
According to the survey, the vast majority of all the inhabitants in the Nordic countries now use streaming services. Across these countries, a total of 90 per cent of all the inhabitants aged 12 to 65 have used at least one music streaming service over the course of the last year.
However, a growing number of Nordic consumers are using only free services for their online use of music: 47% use free or trial versions only and do not have any paid subscription. 43% of the users are premium subscribers or are paying for music through a bundled service. National differences are significant: in Sweden 51% and in Norway 50% of the consumers have a paid subscription, and in Denmark it is 46% and in Finland 26%.
The most popular streaming service in the Nordic countries is YouTube. Within the last year, 74% of the population of the Nordic countries had used YouTube to stream music. Next on the list is Spotify: 54% of the population had used this service to stream music.
The report, further focusing on other platforms, has mentioned that music is also prominently featured in social media, particularly Facebook. The survey shows that 20% of the Nordic population uses Facebook for watching music videos or videos containing music and 11% uses Instagram.
The number of people using only free services has risen from 40% in 2017 to 47% in 2018.
With the continuous outbursts of digital music consumption, it has also been observed that radio still remains the most often cited source for new music discovery in all four countries. According to Polaris Nordic, 36% of the respondents selected “I heard it on the radio” when prompted for the source of discovery for the latest new track found to be good.
For young people (aged 12-29), the role of YouTube, friends and music streaming services was considerably higher for new music discovery, but radio plays a role in their lives as well.
