• 99% of music businesses are micro, small or medium sized enterprises – “the independents”.
• The music sector consists of thousands of independents and 4 multinationals – “the majors”.
• The independents are the innovators and early adopters, discovering new talent and producing 80% of all new releases.
• The collective market share of the independents is nearly 20%. Previously this was 40%.
• The biggest independent now has only 1.5% of the market. Previously this was 7%. The biggest major has over 40%.
• The combined market share of the majors is more than 80%, climbing to a massive 95% for hits and radio.
• The value of European recorded music sales in 2008 was 7 billion.
• Culture is bigger than any of chemicals, automobiles or ICT manufacturing.
• 80% of Europe’s jobs are generated by SMEs.
• Europe generates over half the world’s music publishing revenues and one third of global recording sales, but only 13% of the world’s digital market.
• A study published in March 2010 showed that, in 2008, the EU's creative industries most impacted by piracy (including recorded music) experienced retail revenue losses of €10 billion and losses of more than 185,000 jobs due to piracy, largely digital piracy. Based on current projections and assuming no significant policy changes, the EU's creative industries could expect to see cumulative retail revenue losses of as much as €240 billion by 2015, resulting in 1.2 million jobs lost by 2015.
• IMPALA Sales Awards represent over 60 million CDs sold and 1 billion in revenue.
• IMPALA represents over 4000 independent music companies and national associations.

Further statistics on the music industry

Total Recorded Music Market, 2010 (top 5)

Rk	Country	Trade Value (US $, M)	% Total
1	USA	4,167.7	26.1 %
2	Japan	3,958.6	24.8 %
3	Germany	1,412.2	8.8 %
4	United Kingdom	1,375.5	8.6 %
5	France	866.1	5.4 %

Format

Physical sales still account for the majority of industry revenues, with 70% of global trade revenue, compared to 25% from digital sales and 5% from performance rights revenues.

Global Trade Value By Channel, 2010

(Further statistics on the music industry source : The recording industry in numbers 2011– IFPI: http://www.ifpi.org/