Car audio to deliver music that suits your journey The survey, Digital Music Nation 2013, forecasts a new wave of growth as next-generation audio systems - which link both the car and the living room to a central "hub" which streams high-quality music - will replace revenues lost by the decline of physical CDs. Paul Smernicki, director of digital at Universal Music UK, said: "The Holy Grail is how to give someone a completely seamless musical experience that just follows them around. Layering an experience on top of music is where we in the industry can be innovative and there is great music intelligence out there to help us to do so. I want to be able to tell my car where I'm going and for it to devise a playlist to last the journey based on my musical tastes. That's the future that will take people to a whole new digital immersion level. Companies like Echo Nest, a music intelligence platform which crawls through a database of 30 million songs to provide the data for digital recommendation services, are bringing intuitive playlists closer, according to The Independent. ABI Research forecasts that 50.9m connected cars with live streaming capabilities will be sold every year worldwide by 2017 as the volume of cars sold with CD players decreases. The report, commissioned by music industry body BPI, says: "Outside of the home, connected cars will also create new opportunities for music services. Developments in the US already hint at the potential here. Satellite radio broadcaster Sirius XM is already installed in a number of new car brands while streaming radio service Pandora has signed several partnerships in this space and MOG entered into a deal with BMW in January. In Europe, Spotify linked with Seat in Spain last year to bundle subscriptions into its Ibiza cars, as well as Denon and Marantz. A Mintel survey found that 47 per cent of car owners aged over 17 listened to music more in their car than at home, rising to over 50 per cent among those under 34.