Christmas is coming early for music listeners according to JP Morgan, which has analysed downloads of seasonal songs on Spotify and concludes we already on course to beat 2019.
According to the bank’s analysis of the UK market, the share of Christmas songs in the Top 200 is already at 35% compared to 29% a year ago and just 15% for the global chart.
Globally, average Christmas song streams in November 2020 were up 129% from a year earlier, in part reflecting users starting to listen earlier in the month and perhaps an earlier desire to ‘get into the festive spirit’ after a hard 2020.
Streams for the first week of December 2020 are up 26% year-on-year said JPM.
Universal Music today announced it had bought Bob Dylan’s entire back catalogue, but JP Morgan suggests that a sprinkling of top Xmas tunes might be an even better investment.
They have been steadily increasing their share of the download market, it says, and after peaking at 41% globally in late December last year are set to do even better in 2020.
Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas (500mln downloads) and Wham’s Last Christmas (361mln) remain the chart-toppers while Jingle Bell Rock, Happy Xmas (War is over) and Santa Claus is coming to town are the most covered songs.
For investors, the rapidly growing song investment fund Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd (LON:SONG) gives some exposure to the booming Christmas market.
“The fund has an interest in ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You‘ but has exposure to a number of other Christmas songs such as Ariana Grande’s ‘Santa Tell Me‘, as well as Christmas albums by Barry Manilow and ‘2000 Miles’ by The Pretenders,” said JPM.
Hipgnosis shares were unchanged at 123p valuing the fund at GBP980mln.
A stocking filler perhaps.
