A market survey conducted by Norstat for the WiMP music streaming service shows that roughly 3 out of 10 Norwegians and Swedes have listened to music by streaming in the week before the questioning took place. The survey was collected in January of 2012. In Norway, this proportion increased 20 to 29 percent from June of the past year, while Sweden saw a jump of 27 to 29 percent, showing the early saturation of the market. Danish users are behind the times, with a jump from 14 to a current 20%. This low penetration can likely be explained by Spotify only launching in Denmark in October.
While we may think of Sweden as the home of music streaming, the proportion of Norwegians who have access to a music streaming service has increased from 37 to 56 percent in the last six months. For the first time, Norway has surpassed Sweden in this statistic – in Sweden during the same period the corresponding figure increased from 48 to 54 percent.
General manager Per Einar Dybvik of WiMP in Norway, the sponsors of this survey explains, “Our agreement with Canal Digital, which provides one in three Norwegian households with the opportunity to get WiMP included in the television subscription is obviously important for this development.”
Norstat figures also show that the majority of Scandinavians under 30 wants to pay for their music. Swedish youth are the most positive, with 54 percent saying yes to paying, while also an additional 1 in 4 say it depends on the service. Only 14 percent of young Swedes say “No” to the question of willingness to pay for a music streaming service.
Across all three Scandinavian countries, the survey also shows that over half the people who previously downloaded music illegally no longer do so after they have been given access to a streaming service.
Image by Titanas on Flickr
