Global digital music revenues reached an all-time high of $5.9 billion last year as revenues from streaming services, both ad-supported (+17.6%) and subscription-based (+51.3%), saw strong growth that outweighed a slight decline in download sales (-2.1%), according to Statistica (http://tinyurl.com/n8mp662).
Looking at the past five years, downloads are still up by more than 50%, however, the recent slowdown suggests that the download market may have peaked, while streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify and iTunes Radio are just taking off. Considering the slowdown in download sales, it makes perfect sense that Apple is reportedly thinking about launching an on-demand streaming service that goes beyond iTunes Radio.