Digital Music Revives Swedish Biz

After four years of decline, Sweden's recorded music market is showing signs of bottoming out.

For the first six months of 2006, the recorded music market dropped 1.4% in value at 383.9 million kronor ($54 million) based on a volume of 17.6 million units, according to industry body GLF.

Although shipments of physical product -- CDs, vinyl records, music cassettes and music DVDs -- reported a shortfall, digital forms of music are filling the void. In the first six months, GLF says sales of digitally-distributed music rose 422% to 27.7 million kronor ($3.9 million).

More digitally-distributed music has been shipped during the first six months of this year than during the entire year of 2005, when the value of digital shipments totaled 21 million kronor ($2.9 million).

More than 10 million units of digital content were shifted during the first half; GLF did not report digital shipments in the first half of 2005.

Meanwhile, physical formats during the six-month period registered a 8.6% decline in value at 356 million kronor ($50.1 million).

Album shipments dropped 8.9% in value to 333.3 million kronor ($46.9 million) and 7.6% in volume to 6.7 million units. Singles sank 16.6% in value to 7 million kronor ($981,391.58), declining 2.8% in volume to 510,000 units.

Music-related DVD product rebounded 4.4% in value to 15.9 million kronor ($2.2 million), and rose 18% in volume to 225,000 units.

Stockholm-based GLF estimates that its member companies account for 90% of pre-recorded music sales in Sweden.