Bandcamp shows massive growth in 2017
The Bandcamp financial review shows growth in the double digits across all sectors.
2017 was a huge year of growth for the independent music platform as their report revealed.
The platform showed growth across all sectors of the business:
-Digital Album sales went up by 16%
-Tracks by 33%
-Merch up by 36%
-Vinyl skyrocketed by 54%
-Old school CDs rose by 18%
-Even more old school cassettes (didn’t know that was still a thing) (but clearly it is) as it rose by 41%.
The report shows that revenue from the 3 500 independent labels operating on Bandcamp rose by 73%, with payment to artists amounting to $270 million.
Artists are getting PAID!
The grassroots at Bandcamp are green!
This is excellent news for independent labels that are championed by Bandcamp’s grassroots approach to promotion, distribution and payment.
Now in their 6th year of operation, over 600 000 artists have sold music on the platform showing no signs of slowing down.
Interestingly the growth seen by Bandcamp comes at the same time as mega streaming services like Spotify report major losses and industry-wide record sales continue to drop.
With so many streaming platforms in the musical pie, times have become increasingly tumultuous as Apple reportedly knocked Spotify out of the number one streaming spot in the US.
As explained in the report, the reason for this is in terms of how the global music industry on a wider scale could make it so that “the majority of music consumption will eventually take place within the subscription rental services of two or three enormous corporations, who can afford to lose money on music because it attracts customers to the parts of their businesses that are profitable”.
Even though there is an industry-wide dip in sales, Bandcamp shows that a grassroots approach can actually work.
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