What replaced it, the disappeared piano lessons

Recently, "piano crash" has become one of the hot topics on the Internet.

Logically speaking, it is unlikely that business will be good or bad without warning, but the changes in piano sales are described by media reports as "a cliff-like decline" and "abandoned overnight."

Is this really the case? What is the current situation of the piano production and training industry? What's the reason behind this?

The main evidence that pianos cannot be sold is the performance of the A-share listed company Zhujiang Piano. This company's pianos account for more than 40% of the domestic market and more than 30% of the global market. According to its financial report, Zhujiang Piano’s net profit was negative in the second and third quarters of last year, and its losses intensified in the third quarter, reaching 20.12 million yuan.

However, if you look at the profit of Pearl River Piano in the past ten years, you will find that although the loss occurred in 2023, it has experienced rapid single-quarter declines in 2020 and 2022, and its profits have been declining year by year.

If you look at the growth rate of Pearl River Piano's net profit, it will be clearer. In the three years since the epidemic, except for the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021, it has been negative. Only in 2023, the decline in net profit has further expanded.

This shows that the decline of the piano business has been very obvious during the epidemic.

According to statistics from Magic Mirror Insights, the downward trend in piano online sales is also the same, and it will be very obvious after 2020. 2023 will be the lowest year, about 228,800 units, with average monthly sales of only 19,000 units.

What is the objective reason why the piano cannot be sold?

The first reason that comes to mind is that the population base of piano students has declined?

According to survey data from the "2022 China Music Education Industry Report", more than half of the users in China's music education market are K12 groups, that is, students aged 6 to 18 years old. Working backwards, the birth years of this group are probably between 2005 and 2017.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the number of births has been relatively stable in recent years and has not declined significantly. In 2016 and 2017, there was a small peak of newborns due to the two-child policy. In other words, when it comes to pianos, demographic factors may not yet come into play.

If it's not demographic factors, then what's the reason that pianos have gradually declined in the past few years?

The answer probably lies in the beginning of the decline in piano sales.

The epidemic is of course a very important reason. Various isolation policies have made offline teaching difficult in the past three years. Not only in the mainland, but also in Hong Kong, there are news reports that piano teachers have reduced their face-to-face clients by 80%. Three years, for piano students, is exactly the stage of changing pianos and buying pianos - the entry-level level 1-3 takes almost three years.

Another reason that many people may not notice is the change in policy. In 2018, the Ministry of Education issued the "Notice on Enrollment of Ordinary Primary and Secondary Schools in 2018", which clearly mentioned that the enrollment scale of students with special talents should be gradually reduced. The time node for canceling all types of primary and secondary school students with special talents is 2020.

In 2021, the Ministry of Education issued the document "Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening and Improving the Enrollment of Art Major Examinations in General Colleges and Universities", announcing that students with art specialties in the college entrance examination will be canceled in 2024, and admissions will be based on the results of cultural courses.

The functional position of artistic talents such as piano in education and further studies has been weakened. The old students stopped studying due to the interruption of the epidemic, while the new students have no motivation to study again. This is also the main reason why piano sales did not pick up but fell further after the epidemic ended.

During the two years of the epidemic, the number of piano-related company registrations in China has decreased year by year. In 2022, there were only 935 new companies, which was a 64% decrease compared to 2020. By 2023, the number of bankrupt companies will reach 1,286, an increase of 32% compared to 2022.

The last reason is the impact of the economic environment. After the epidemic, a "consumption scar effect" appeared on the public, that is, residents' desire to consume was reduced. Especially in 2022, RMB deposits will grow significantly, almost reaching the peak in the past 20 years, with a year-on-year increase of 80.2%. In the context of sluggish consumption, it is reasonable for large purchases like pianos that are both expensive and unnecessary to be affected.

Interestingly, in this case, there is also a "consumption downgrade" in piano consumption. Although pianos can no longer be sold, the sales of relatively cheaper electric pianos have increased - in 2015, the size of my country's electric piano market was only 561 million yuan, which doubled to 1.026 billion yuan in just a few years.

In addition, sales of folk musical instruments are also growing.

For example, Pipa. The report shows that the pipa market is growing steadily, and the market size is expected to reach 16 billion yuan by 2024, with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 10%.

According to statistics from Magic Mirror Insight, sales of ethnic stringed instruments have been relatively stable in the past four years. Although there was a brief decline due to the epidemic, the overall sales trend has been on the rise. In September 2023, online sales reached the peak in the past four years, reaching 40.75 million yuan.

In fact, compared with piano lessons, the cost of folk music lessons is not low. The reporter searched for folk music training courses at three different price points in Shanghai and found that the price of a 45-minute music training course ranged from 180 yuan to 340 yuan, which was almost the same as the cost of piano training.

In addition, according to the reporter's observation, sports training for school-age children has become more and more popular in recent years. In first-tier cities, most children participate in at least one extracurricular sports training. A search using the keyword "sports training" showed that the number of companies related to physical training surged from 450,000 in March last year to 493,000 in October. Among them, 68,000 were established in the past year and 39,000 were established in the past six months.

The more interesting place is also here. In 2023, residents' per capita consumption expenditure on education, culture and entertainment will be 2,904 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.62%, which is the peak in the past ten years - but this has nothing to do with pianos. It is not so much that consumers cannot afford pianos. , it is better to say that I don’t want to buy it. Without the blessing of grade examination and further education, the “halo” of the piano has been shattered so quickly, which is also sad.