After the departure of major international labels – Warner Music, Universal Music and Sony Music – from Russia, the domestic companies have significantly bolstered their financial performance, according to Kommersant. The newspaper reports that the earnings and profits of Russian labels have increased by 50 to 60 percent and new projects launched in the past two years have shown a multiple growth.
Industry participants attribute the growth in profits of Russian music labels to both the departure of Western companies and the growth of the music streaming market, which may lead to a revision of the contract terms for the supply of content to the platforms.
Dmitry Konnov, the head of the digital content distribution company “Zvonko Digital”, stated in an interview with NSN that the era of explosive growth is over and the further growth of new streaming users for Russian labels will not be as rapid. He explained: “It’s not about the number of providers, but about the cost of a subscription or the total volume of users who use this subscription. The number of users is constantly increasing. MTS Music has confirmed that, as of now, 24 million people use the service per month. Three years ago, such numbers did not exist. Earnings will naturally increase, but the point is that we, compared to, for example, Indonesia, do not have a very large population. In essence, everyone who wanted to have access to digital music has already gained access. There are probably still ten percent of people who can still be reached. The time of explosive growth is over and we are moving towards a normal growth of about ten to 15 percent per year. Everything will continue to grow, but it will be calm.