BTS, Drake and Ariana Grande boost music sales to $9 billion – the highest profits in decade

BTS, Drake and Ariana Grande have had a pretty good year and it is reflecting on the music industry as it releases its highest earnings in a decade.

Global music sales grew for the fourth year in a row in 2018 with streaming now making up for almost half of all label revenue, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) Global Music Report 2019.

The music market is now worth $19bn (£15bn), close to the level of 2006, and the popularity in streaming subscriptions is being thanked for saving the industry.

In the space of a decade streaming revenue has grown from $40m (£30.7m) to almost $9bn (£6.9bn), while platforms like Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer now accumulate almost half (46%) of the industry’s total profit.

In February, IFPI named Drake as the world’s best-selling recording artist of 2018 following the success of his fifth studio album, Scorpion.

The Canadian rapper was followed closely by K-Pop band BTS, who hold the second biggest album with Love Yourself: Answer. 2018’s biggest selling album was The Greatest Showman soundtrack, which sold 3.5 million copies.

Ariana Grande tailed behind Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, Eminem, Queen and Imagine Dragons on the list of best-selling artists.

Lady Gaga finished off in ninth place followed closely by Please Me singer Bruno Mars.

Meanwhile, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody album sold over 1.2 million copies in 2018 in joint place with Pink’s Beautiful Trauma.

Revealing the figures at a press conference in London, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore said: ‘In previous years this [event] used to be described as a “mourn-fest”, because we only had bad news.

‘But four years starts to look like it’s a pattern, rather than just a one-off.’

Discussing the changing climate of the industry, Moore added: ‘The potential and the vision is so much different because where you’ve got growth, you can invest.

‘When the growth wasn’t there, it was a question of just getting by and keeping the industry going on a day-to-day basis.’