PricewaterhouseCoopers has come out with its hefty annual study of the media and entertainment (E&M) industry worldwide, and will expand into a $1.83 trillion industry in 2010, up from an estimated $1.33 trillion last year, making for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.6%.
—The biggest sub-sector is Internet advertising and access spending, for which PwC projects a CAGR of 12.9%, and video games, with an estimated 11.4% compound gain. Filmed entertainment will expand at a rate of 5.3%, according to PwC.
—The strongest gainers in the U.S. will be video games at 8.9%; the Internet sector, set for a five-year compound boost of 8.4% that is below PwC’s double-digit five-year prediction from last year and driven by online ads.
—The home video business will expand at a 5.4% average rate to $33.08 billion as 6.9% sell-through growth and a 26.4% online rental/digital streaming increase will more than offset an estimated 4.1% rental decline.
—Online subscription rentals, including DVD-by-mail and broadband delivery services, will grow from virtually nothing in 2002 to $3.62 billion in 2010, compared with the then-estimated $6.18 billion in-store rental market.
—Variety: Music is likely to experience the greatest sea change. Physical album sales are predicted to be an $8 billion-a-year business in 2010, down from $10.6 billion in 2005. Digital and mobile sales will make up 42% of all music sales in the U.S. in four years; digital singles sales will rise to $1.5 billion from $367 million.
A summary of all the sectors and the results is here.