Car Design Becomes The New Frontier For Music Consumption
Car companies are embracing the digital music revolution at an accelerating rate, with latest figures suggesting 20 per cent of new vehicles sold in the UK this year will be delivered without CD players as auto manufacturers increasingly turn to connected technology.
And new research commissioned jointly by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) and the BPI, which represents UK record labels, from specialist auto industry consultancy SBD, reveals that internet-based audio is likely to overtake CD in new cars by 2021.
But alongside the more familiar on-demand streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, Napster and SoundCloud, a complementary breed of web radio specialists are helping to lead the charge in in-car entertainment, including TuneIn, Aupeo and Aha.
Whilst the long-term trend points towards a fully digitally connected car, the compact disc continues to show its remarkable resilience. With new car sales typically representing less than 10 per cent of the cars on the road (2014: 8 per cent) and CD players set to be in more than half of new cars for at least five years, the compact disc is likely to remain part of our in-car listening experience for many years to come.
Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive BPI and BRIT Awards, said: “Cars are the second most popular environment for listening to music after our homes, so are a key part of the music ecosystem. Manufacturers design their models a good four to five years before they hit the road, which in the past has seen in-car listening follow trends in music consumption rather than lead them, but rapid advances in automotive design suggests that in-car technology will play a far bigger role in shaping how we listen to music in the future.”
Kim Bayley, Chief Executive ERA, said: “Just as in the home and via smartphone, digital services are pioneering new ways for music companies to reach the consumer and for music fans to access their favourite music. The car is in many ways the final frontier for digital music, but one of the most striking things about this research is quite how resilient the compact disc is proving to be.”
The growing popularity of cloud-based music services in the car industry is closely linked with the rise of ‘connected cars’ – cars linked to the internet. Over two-thirds of carmakers operating in Europe today offer connected car options. In five year’s time that is expected to rise to 93 per cent.
SBD consumer research suggests this is a trend driven by car buyers: nearly half of those questioned (48 per cent) said they would switch their preferred auto brand if it did not offer connected services.
Lee Colman, Head of Connected Car at SBD, commented “While high-end cars are increasingly being offered with their own embedded SIM cards which drive their audio services, mass market solutions are likely to rely on connecting to a mobile phone.”
A significant driver of take-up is expected to be widespread adoption of the CarPlay Apple) and Android Auto (Google) standards. But the relatively slow pace of change in the car industry is indicated by the fact that SBD estimates the industry is at least 10 years away from the universal adoption of smartphone integration in all new cars.
Source: Entertainment Retailers Association
