There are rumors that Apple is working on a streaming music service. While that doesn't interest me personally, a new study says that more people have access to a music streaming service, more listen to music through streaming, more are willing to pay and an increasing amount believe that streaming will be the dominant way to play music in 2-4 years. At least in certain countries.

The youngest generation, those under 30 lead the way. The new numbers are from a survey conducted in June for music streaming service WiMP (www.wimp.de), which runs the survey twice a year in its current markets -- this time Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

According to the survey results, Norwegians are the most likely to have access to a streaming service: 61% say they do, against 56% in Sweden, 35% in Denmark and 16% in Germany. Numbers have increased in all Scandinavian countries.

While the highest amount of Norwegians stated they have access to a streaming service, most Swedes said they in fact listened to music through streaming during last week. More than one in three said they did so. The usage numbers also continue to increase in all countries, with Norway showing the largest increase in percentage points from 20% one year ago to 31% now. Danish numbers increased in the same period from 14% to 22% while of Germans (new) 16% said they did.

Willingness to pay increased in parallel with access and usage and Swedes, who's had access to streaming services the longest, are on top of the list with 36% saying "yes," followed by Norwegians (33%), Germans (25%) and Danes (14%). Especially in Norway, this share is steadily increasing, from 25% last year and 30% in January. The share who says "maybe, it depends on the service" also increased from 24% to 32%, while the share who said "no" reduced as much as 16 percentage points from 51% last June to 35% this year.

When asked what way to distribute music that will be dominating in 2-4 years, 65% of Swedes, 64% of Norwegians, 51% of Danes and 33% of Germanys now answer streaming. Only the Germans still believe in download (42%). Eighty-seven percent of young Swedes under 30 years of age believe streaming will be the dominant way to play music in 2-4 years and the youngest age group is leading the development.

All numbers for streaming are the highest in this group, with 86% of young Swedes having access to a streaming service, 61% listening to music from streaming last week and 67% saying "yes" to pay for a streaming service.
More than half of young Swedes and Norwegian also state they download less music illegally after having gained access to a music streaming service.

The survey was conducted by Respons Analyse for WiMP, with one thousand people in each country answering an online survey in June 2012. The survey was conducted in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany with a total of 4 000 respondents. Previous editions of the survey has been conducted by Norstat for WiMP.

-- Dennis Sellers