Culture is future » Innovation and digital

Did you know? Streaming vs. download, figures of the online consumption in France and in Scandinavia

According to the REC barometer of GFK institute about the French’s digital uses (a survey prepared with 1000 French Internet users aged 15 to 65), music streaming represents now 51% of listening on the web, more than the download which corresponds to 49%. The most popular sites are video platforms (YouTube, Dailymotion) and live listening (Deezer, Spotify), and then Web radio. A similar phenomenon was observed in other regions in Europe. In Scandinavia for example (survey conducted by Norstat), almost half of young individuals listens to music through streaming.

On the other hand, according to the GFK barometer, in France 61% of individuals listen to streaming music through free offers, legal or not. Only 11% of web listening result in a payment. While 73% of Swedish and 65% of Norwegians claim to be willing to pay for a music streaming service (18% of them state that it depends on the quality of service). In Norway, in the first quarter of 2011, digital music revenues were more important than the physical’s ones and streaming revenues were higher than downloading ones. Finally, we note that this new usage affects illegal downloading. In the study in Scandinavia, among those under 30, almost 50% claim that streaming usage stopped their habit to use illegal downloading.

In France, audiovisual streaming also increases even if videos and music downloading has been the dominant consumption mode on the Internet for a long time.

Regarding digital books, according to the GFK survey, consumption raises in France and if 27% are downloaded illegally, the majority is legally obtained, mainly through websites as Gallica, BnF or googlebooks (52%) and bookstores sites such as the Fnac, or chapitre.com 1001libraires.com (41%). But the majority of downloaded books are books available in virtual libraries (77%), for free.