The results of a consumer tracking study on the penetration of music streaming via the internet in the United Kingdom (UK) as of 2022 inquired into respondents' behavior regarding online content during the last three months. The survey found that music streaming was most common among respondents aged 16 to 24 years. Within the age group of 35 to 44 year-olds and 25-34 year-olds were the second largest groups of music streamers, with frequency of use gradually declining among older participants from the age of 44.

Digital music outselling CDs and vinyl

The music retail industry as a whole has been growing in the UK from 2011 up to 2019, with the exception of a slight drop in both 2014 and 2018. The sales of physical media such as CDs and vinyl however have been on a steady year-on-year decline, reflecting the increasing popularity of digital streaming and downloading services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. According to Statista’s Digital Market Outlook, music streaming is also predicted to take growing precedence over downloading in the years to come, potentially growing its base from 17.2 million users in 2019 to 21.6 million by 2024.

Smartphones in the lead

Between 2013 and 2015, users in Great Britain preferred streaming and downloading music on tablets. This changed from 2016 as smartphones became and remained until 2019 the device of choice when it came to enjoying digital music. The smartphone’s portability and versatility, combined with a host of streaming apps makes it the ideal everyday music player. As of March 2020, the leading music app in the Google Play Store in Great Britain was Spotify which was downloaded nearly 200 million times.

Music streaming revenue has increased astronomically in the last ten years alone – growing from 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 to 14.9 billion in 2024. Streaming has become a popular pastime for U.S. music fans and a major source of revenue for the industry, though many traditional consumers lament the resulting decline of physical music formats. Physical CD shipments have dwindled, whilst digital music platforms are flourishing.  The world of digital music   Platforms like Spotify have millions of users worldwide, and millions of tracks are streamed via the service each week. In the U.S., more than 25 percent of adults under the age of 35 are Spotify users, as well as almost 20 percent of adults aged 55 or above. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of digital music revenue in the United States is derived from subscriptions and streaming, and successful musicians like Drake, Eminem, and Ariana Grande  amass billions of streams each year.  Whilst many artists in the music industry generate most of their income from touring, streaming is also incredibly lucrative, generating millions of dollars in earnings.  

The most successful music streaming service in the United States was Apple Music as of September, with the most up to date information showing that 49.5 million users accessed the platform each month. Spotify closely followed, with a similarly impressive 47.7 million monthly users.

What is a music streaming service?

Music streaming services provide their users with a database compiled of songs, playlists, albums and videos, where content can be accessed online, downloaded, shared, bookmarked and organized.

The music streaming business is huge, and has sometimes been lauded as the savior of the music industry. The biggest two services are in constant competition for the monopoly of the market. Apple Music was launched in 2015, whereas Spotify has been around since 2008. Other popular streaming services include Deezer, SoundCloud and iHeartRadio.

Do artists make a lot of money from streaming services? 

In short, unfortunately not. Both Apple Music and Spotify have been frequently criticized for the tiny royalty payments they offer artists. Particularly for emerging talent, streaming services are far from a lucrative source of income. Bigger, established stars like Taylor Swift are more likely to regularly make a good amount of money this way. But either way, a track needs to go viral or be streamed several million times before it earns any real cash.

In 2024, streaming revenues reached 20.4 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, the highest ever recorded and nearly eight times the figure given for 2015, when music streaming revenue amounted to 2.6 billion. Streaming revenues now account for over 69 percent of total global recorded music revenue. The music industry is changing Over the last two decades, the music industry has been heavily impacted by the development of technology and the internet. Physical sales were the main source of revenue in the music industry before digital formats were invented. Even in 2000, U.S. album shipments still amounted to around 940 million U.S. dollars before dropping each year until the figure stood at just 37 million in 2023. This development is also mirrored in music industry revenue trends. Streaming has dramatically increased its share of U.S. music industry revenue, making up 84 percent in 2023, up by almost 20 percent from the figure recorded in 2017. Meanwhile, the share of music revenue generated by physical sales has decreased in equal measures, and in 2022 accounted for just 11 percent of the total. Streaming platforms With over 700 million paying music subscribers worldwide, streaming platforms have become an essential part of the music industry’s landscape. Swedish streaming giant Spotify has dominated the market for years and commands roughly one third of music streaming subscribers globally. On the other hand, Apple Music, making up 12.6 percent of the market, and Amazon with 11.1 percent, have struggled to keep up with Spotify’s growing audience. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Spotify’s revenue from its premium subscribers hit 3.7 billion euros and the climbing number of ad-supported users brought in an additional 537 million euros. By comparison, just seven years earlier in the corresponding quarter of 2016, Spotify’s premium subscriber revenue was 775 million euros and its ad-supported revenue just at nearly 100 million euros.

In the third quarter of 2023, the number of music streaming subscribers worldwide amounted to 713 million, up from 616 million at the end of the second quarter of 2022. Paid music streaming subscriptions have become the norm for many music fans, and the market has seen consistently impressive increases in subscriber numbers over the last few years. Recent forecasts show however that whilst both subscriber numbers and revenue are expected to continue to rise, growth will slow down in the near future. Changes can already be seen from 2016 onwards. Year-on-year music streaming revenue growth was 65.1 percent worldwide, but fell by more than 20 percent in 2017 and was just 11 percent in 2022It is expected that the U.S. and the UK will continue to be the biggest streaming markets in years to come, but reports also show that Brazil, India, China, and MENA countries will catch up over the next decade and rank among the top global markets by 2026. Other changes to the market include a growing focus on podcasts, which have more potential than many music buffs may realize. Music streaming and podcasts Several companies have reaped the benefits of consumers’ growing interest in on-the-go digital music consumption, especially market leader Spotify, which made its first profit in early 2019. Spotify has announced plans to spend hundreds of millions on podcasting, hoping to capitalize on the potential podcasts have to generate ad revenue and plotting to invest in exclusive content so podcasts fans go to Spotify first. But it is not only the companies offering digital music services who are making money from music streaming: consumers are, too (and some more than others). Whilst recording artists battle for streams to secure as many royalty payments as possible, the lesser-known beneficiaries of music streaming services are, in fact, podcast curators. A 2019 report showed that podcast curators with an average audience of 20 thousand listeners per weekly podcast would need just 80 thousand streams per month to generate an income of around 6,500 U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, major record label artists would need over seven million streams of their content to earn the same amount.

In the third quarter of 2023, 31.7 percent of music streaming subscribers worldwide had a subscription with Spotify, more than double the share who were subscribed to the second-ranked Tencent Music. Other services in the list included Apple Music, Amazon, and YouTube. Beyond Spotify – other streaming services Spotify may be the biggest music streaming service in the world, but despite its arguably immense popularity and impressive number of subscribers, it hasn’t achieved global domination just yet. French service Deezer has more than tripled its worldwide subscriber base in the last few years, and although its subscriber numbers don’t come close to Spotify’s, Deezer’s growth goes to show that Spotify hasn’t quite won the hearts of every music streaming fans out there. Another popular streaming service used worldwide is Apple Music, which is in constant competition with Spotify in the United States in particular. Regardless of subscriber numbers though, in the U.S. Spotify is still considered more preferable than Apple Music. Apple is often reluctant to publish their customer numbers, though sources in early 2019 suggested that the service had overtaken Spotify in the U.S. in terms of paid subscribers. That said, Spotify still held the biggest share of overall users, and trends suggest that this will continue.

According to a 2023 survey, 52 percent of 18 to 24 year-olds and 40 percent of 25 to 34 year-olds in the United States said they enjoyed streaming music and podcast content. The age group which enjoyed the audio content the least was 55 years and older, with 31 percent of U.S. respondents saying they enjoyed listening to online music or podcasts.

In 2024, Spotify alone concentrated 73.4 percent of all subscriptions to music streaming services in Mexico. Amazon Music and YouTube followed, with market shares of 8.5 and 7.5 percent, respectively. Music streaming more popular than radio in MexicoRegional data points to a comparatively higher interest in online music among Mexicans than in the other countries in Latin America. Mexico ranks second in the region when it comes to daily time spent with music streaming services. On the other hand, broadcast radio listening time in Mexico is much lower compared to other countries in Latin America. For the most part, Mexican listeners turn to digital sources of music, including paid and free streaming, downloads, music videos, and online radio. Traditional and physical methods of music consumption in Mexico, such as CDs, vinyl, or analog radio are much less popular. It therefore comes as no surprise that the share of households in Mexico with a radio device is constantly declining1 while consumers are switching to online sources of music.

According to a study from 2022 on music streaming services, YouTube was the most popular service among 35 to 54 year-olds. The younger generation, aged between 18 and 34, preferred to subscribe to Spotify.

In the first half of 2024, there were 99 million paid music streaming subscribers in the United States. Like revenues, subscriber numbers have been creeping up year by year, rising from 7.9 million in the first six months of 2014 to 99 million a decade later.

Streaming music revenue in the United States has been increasing dramatically on an annual basis for several years now, and in the first half of 2024 amounted to around 6.5 billion U.S. dollars. According to the source, paid subscription revenues were the industry's main revenue source, accounting for 5.2 billion dollars of the total. Streaming has overtaken other forms of music consumption Since the introduction of music streaming, the format has taken the music world by storm and is now dominating the industry. In the United States, streaming made up 82 percent of the music industry’s revenue, compared to 11 percent of physical sales and three percent of digital downloads. However, while streaming is still the revenue driver of the music market, growth has significantly slowed down, reaching a growth rate of 11.5 percent in 2022. While this is still significant growth, it is a drop from the streaming revenue growth rate of 24.3 percent in 2021. Spotify is dominating the streaming market With over 90 million paid music subscribers in the United States alone, it is no wonder that there are various streaming services competing for market dominance. So far, the most popular streaming service has been Spotify. In 2022, 35 percent of respondents stated that they used Spotify most frequently. The Swedish streaming giant generated a revenue of 11.7 million euros in 2022.

According to a study on music streaming in the United States in 2022, the group with the highest penetration rate was Gen Z with 90 percent of respondents stating that they listened to music within the last month in October 2022. Another popular consumer market was the group of millennials, while baby boomers were less likely to have consumed music within the last months.

During a July 2023 survey, it was found that Spotify dominated as the leading platform for music streaming among young Europeans. YouTube, both the free and premium versions, were slightly more popular among millennials than Gen Zs. Apple Music was used equally by 15 percent of millennials and Gen Zs.

For U.S. consumers, the most important features of music streaming services are quality of sound and price, with 56 percent of respondents citing each of these as the most critical elements they look for when listening to music online. Consumers also want convenience, with 48 percent saying that the most important feature of a service was the ease of making a playlist, 43 percent saying the same about downloading music, and 36 percent prioritising the ease of discovering new songs and artists. Less important was brand trust, video availability, or being able to effectively use a virtual assistant offered by a service.

According to a 2023 survey, 43 percent of African American or Black respondents and 38 percent of Hispanic or Latino respondents in the United States said they enjoyed streaming music and podcast content. Only the group of white or Caucasian respondents enjoyed the audio content even more, with 44 percent of U.S. respondents saying they enjoyed listening to online music or podcasts.

In 2022, YouTube Music was the most popular music streaming service in Hungary, listened to by 20 percent of respondents. Another 12 percent of surveyed Hungarians stated that they were currently using Spotify.

In 2023, music streaming revenues in the U.S. accounted for 84 percent of total music revenue, showing incredible growth from the 21 percent share streaming made up of music revenues a decade ago. However, music streaming growth slowed down significantly between 2019 and 2020, with an increase of less than five percent, compared to the ten percent growth seen between 2017 and 2018.

This statistic illustrates the reach of selected music on demand streaming services in the United States as of July 2018, broken down by age group. During the survey, it was found that the music on demand streaming service, Spotify, reached 47 percent of respondents aged 16 to 19 years old.

The most used online music services in the United States in 2023 were Spotify, YouTube music, and Apple Music, with 35 percent of survey respondents having recently listened to Spotify, 19 percent to YouTube music, and 14 percent to Apple Music. Pandora and Amazon Music lagged behind with just 13 and nine percent of study participants having used each service respectively in the last month.

The music streaming platform, Anghami, had a share of about 58 percent of paying subscribers of music streaming services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in 2021. Its revenue was expected to reach between about 35 million U.S. dollars to 36 million U.S. dollars in that year.