IMS 2017: Electronic Music Biz worth $7.4bn

Today, the International Music Summit (IMS) released the annual IMS Business Report, an in-depth economic study of the Electronic Music Industry, covering all aspects of the genre Delivered directly to the key leaders in the music industry at IMS Ibiza, Kevin Watson, author of the annual business report, has clearly shown positive indicators for the industry as a whole.

In Music Sales and Genres, Dance music sales are up across all formats in the USA - it's now the fifth most popular genre. Germany is at an all-time high with Beatport returning to profit, and techno remains the biggest Beatport seller. Drum and Bass also experiences incredible growth, an exciting indication of a renaissance for that sound, some might say.

There are an astonishing 12 Billion electronic music streams a month on Spotify, and the most popular DJs are growing their followers considerably faster on Instagram than Facebook at an astonishing eleven times the rate, suggesting DJs are making the most impact on Instagram.

And Headliner cover stars, The Chainsmokers, have grown their socials massively over the last year adding 28K followers a day.

Gender diversity remains a key focus with study of festival line-ups showing only 17% of artists to be female, and Latin America is showing a growth in dance music events and festivals, plus a huge growth in total music sales across the board. Dance music is at the forefront of technology trends, too, with VR, virtual festivals, live streaming, and live streaming in 360; and IMS’s decade in the industry shows dance has grown as a genre over the last 10 years, with 25 times more tracks available to buy on Beatport since 2007.

With that in mind, a decade ago, Nielsen didn't even report dance as a separate genre in the USA - now it has achieved a 5% share of total tracks. DJ Mag data tells us that the average age of the most popular DJs is now way lower than a decade ago, and the three biggest DJ events have quintupled in capacity since 2008.

And for the purists among us, take a deep breath... DJ gear sales have grown at twice the rate of that of guitars in the US, with Pioneer expected to sell more than four million units in 2017, three times more than 10 years ago.

Some staggering stats there for you to digest - we'll be bringing you a more detailed report in the next issue of Headliner.