Germany’s recorded music commerce group says it nonetheless sees potential upside forward, regardless of a slowdown within the development fee of recorded music gross sales.
The German Music Trade 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 change fee 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 fee has been working at round 2% in current months, this implies that, on an inflation-adjusted foundation, retail music gross sales shrank barely in H1.
The most recent numbers characterize a big slowdown from H1 2024, when recorded gross sales rose by 7.6% YoY.
The H1 2025 numbers have 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 replicate a common malaise in Germany’s financial system, which has stagnated prior to now a number of years primarily attributable to excessive power costs. Nonetheless, after near-zero development in 2023 and 2024, there have been indicators of a pickup just lately. 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 presently in an thrilling section in which there’s nonetheless potential for development, even in developed markets reminiscent of Germany,” he mentioned in a press release on Thursday (July 24).
“On this surroundings 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 presently consists of the constant continuation of the trail taken with the AI Regulation in an effort to allow the digital license enterprise.”
“We’re presently in an thrilling section in which there’s nonetheless potential for development, even in developed markets reminiscent of Germany.”
Dr. Florian Drücke, BVMI
Massive elements 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 Apply for AI firms, designed to assist them keep away from regulatory burdens from the Act.
The Code’s ideas embrace pointers on how AI firms 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 gathering materials from copyright-infringing sources reminiscent of digital piracy web sites.
Lots of the most distinguished AI firms, 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 facets of the EU’s AI laws have confirmed controversial with rightsholders, as an illustration 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 may allow artists and music firms 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 firms,” GEMA’s Christina von Gemmingen-Hornbergmentioned final yr.Music Enterprise Worldwide
