Germany’s recorded music commerce group says it nonetheless sees potential upside forward, regardless of a slowdown within the development price of recorded music gross sales.
The German Music Business Affiliation (BVMI) says recorded music gross sales within the first half of 2025 hit EUR €1.157 billion (USD $1.36 billion on the common trade price for Q2 2025),on a retail foundation. That’s up 1.4% from the identical interval a yr earlier.
On condition that Germany’s year-on-year inflation price has been operating at round 2% in latest months, this means that, on an inflation-adjusted foundation, retail music gross sales shrank barely in H1.
The most recent numbers symbolize a major slowdown from H1 2024, when recorded gross sales rose by 7.6% YoY.
The H1 2025 numbers had been considerably stronger for digital music gross sales particularly (streaming and a la carte downloads), which rose 3.9% YoY.
Nonetheless, that development was partly offset by a 13.2% YoY decline in bodily gross sales (vinyl and CDs), with CD gross sales dropping 20.1% YoY.
The numbers mirror a common malaise in Germany’s economic system, which has stagnated previously a number of years primarily on account of excessive power costs. Nonetheless, after near-zero development in 2023 and 2024, there have been indicators of a pickup not too long ago. The nation’s actual (inflation-adjusted) GDP grew 0.3% in Q2 2025.
Dr. Florian Drücke, Chairman & CEO of BVMI, stays optimistic concerning the recorded music enterprise going ahead.
“As an trade, we’re at the moment in an thrilling part in which there’s nonetheless potential for development, even in developed markets equivalent to Germany,” he mentioned in a press release on Thursday (July 24).
“On this setting characterised by enormous technological leaps, our trade is especially reliant on European legislators maintaining a tally of the authorized framework for future digital enterprise areas. This at the moment contains the constant continuation of the trail taken with the AI Regulation with the intention to allow the digital license enterprise.”
“We’re at the moment in an thrilling part in which there’s nonetheless potential for development, even in developed markets equivalent to Germany.”
Dr. Florian Drücke, BVMI
Massive components of the European Union’s AI Act will come into pressure in early August, and earlier this month the European Fee unveiled a voluntary Code of Observe for AI corporations, designed to assist them keep away from regulatory burdens from the Act.
The Code’s ideas embody pointers on how AI corporations accumulate copyrighted content material on-line, requiring them to not circumvent restrictions positioned by rightsholders on web-scraping of information. The Code additionally requires them to keep away from amassing materials from copyright-infringing sources equivalent to digital piracy web sites.
Lots of the most outstanding AI corporations, together with Anthropic, Microsoft and OpenAI, have dedicated to abiding by the Code, though Fb and Instagram proprietor Meta Platformshas mentioned it gained’t signal on.
Some features of the EU’s AI laws have confirmed controversial with rightsholders, for example the “opt-out” mechanism that requires copyright house owners to explicitly state that they don’t need their content material for use to coach AI.
That regulation final yr prompted each Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group to ship out letters to AI builders informing them that they’re opting out of getting their supplies used to coach AI.
German performing rights assortment society GEMA has been on the forefront of music trade our bodies calling for a licensing market that will allow artists and music corporations to be paid for the usage of their music in coaching AI.
“We’re ready to barter honest phrases of use and remuneration fashions with the AI corporations,” GEMA’s Christina von Gemmingen-Hornbergmentioned final yr.Music Enterprise Worldwide
