24 May 2018

New research published by the Ovum newsletter Music & Copyright has revealed that retail sales of R&B/hip-hop jumped 24.1% in 2017, to $2.59bn, from $2.08bn in 2016.

The genre's share of retail sales increased, to 11.9%, from 10.4%. Furthermore, R&B/hip-hop’s retail share has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Pop and rock remain the two most popular music genres. Consumer spending on pop music increased 3.9%, to $6.79bn, from $6.53bn, while spending on rock music grew 2.5%, to $5.25bn, from $5.12bn. In terms of revenue share, pop accounted for 31.1% of global music retail sales, with rock taking a 24.1% share.

Global, recorded-music retail sales by genre share, 2017

Source: Music & Copyright

“The simple explanation why R&B/hip-hop sales have risen so much in the last few years is that streaming use has grown sharply. The streaming audience is skewed toward a younger demographic, and R&B/hip-hop is more popular among younger consumers,” said Simon Dyson, editor of Music & Copyright and Practice Leader of Ovum’s Music team. “National trade associations that have published sales by genre and retail channel have shown that the streaming share for R&B/hip-hop can sometimes be more than double the genre’s share of more traditional format sales. With streaming forecast to continue rising for the next few years at least, the future for R&B/hip-hop has never looked so good.”