Slipping discs: music streaming revenues of $6.6bn surpass CD sales

Popularity of services such as Spotify outstrips traditional formats for first time

Streaming music revenues surpassed income from the sale of traditional formats for the first time last year, as the booming popularity the service puts the survival of the CD at risk.

Revenue from music fans paying for services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music surged more than 41% to $6.6bn (4.7bn), accounting for more than 38% of the total global market for recorded music. The sale of physical formats, primarily CDs, fell 5.4% to $5.2bn to account for 30%.