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.

Estimates suggest that Apple Music had 93 million subscribers worldwide in June 2023, up by five million from the previous year. Launched in 2015 by U.S. tech giant Apple, Apple Music is the second largest music streaming service worldwide, competing with market leader Spotify. Spotify remains market leader While Apple Music is a popular music streaming platform, accounting for 19 percent of subscribers worldwide, the 2008 founded streaming service Spotify remains the market leader with a subscriber share of 35 percent. Financially this meant that the Swedish company generated a global revenue of 1.7 billion euros only through its Premium accounts in the third quarter of 2020. Music streaming overall increasesOverall, music streaming has experienced significant growth over the last decade. From 2018 to 2019 alone music streaming revenue grew by 22.9 percent becoming the music industry’s main revenue driver, reaching a revenue of 11.4 billion U.S. dollars worldwide in 2019. With the coronavirus pandemic, the growing digital music consumption was estimated to increase even further in 2020 and 2021.

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 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.

In 2023, the number of online music subscribers reached 667 million, up from 589 million in the previous year. Similarly, subscription streaming grew by more than ten percent, and accounted for almost half of the global market.

According to a study held between the third and fourth quarters of 2018, 38 percent of surveyed internet users in the APAC countries (excluding China) had an paid Apple Music subscription, compared to just 59 percent of respondents in North America. The majority of users worldwide used Apple Music for free, however the majority of North Americans had a premium account.

The number of users is forecast to experience significant growth in all segments in 2027. However, it is evident that the growth of all two segments decelerates during the later stages of the forecast period. Specifically, the segment Music Downloads shows the smallest increase at 2027, with a value of 1.5 million users. Find other insights concerning similar markets and segments, such as a comparison of number of users in the Netherlands and a comparison of average revenue per user (ARPU) in Russia. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

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.

By 2025, Spotify will have 100.6 million users, over twenty million more than the 78.5 million recorded in 2020. However, a gradual decline in Pandora's user base is anticipated to continue over the coming years, with the company losing two to three million active listeners per year.

Spotify and Pandora – more information Pandora

In 2018, Pandora was most popular among users aged 25 to 34 and users aged 55 or above, whereas adults in the 18 to 24-year-old age bracket was by far the company's weakest market segment. Pandora's user base may be flatlining compared to Spotify's, but Pandora’s revenue jumped from four million U.S. dollars to almost 1.5 billion in a decade, showing incredible and consistent growth during that time. Pandora generates most of its revenue from advertising, although has grown increasingly reliant on revenue from subscription services. Pandora was acquired by Sirius XM in February 2019 for 3.5 billion U.S. dollars.

Spotify In 2018, Spotify reported 5.2 billion euros in revenue, following a history of significant growth. Spotify was operating at a loss for years, but reported its first quarterly operating profit at the beginning of 2019. the company has placed a stronger focus on podcasts and will continue to do so according to industry experts and company reports, and is one of the most popular podcast providers in the United States.

The number of paid subscription music streaming service users in Japan was estimated at more than 11 million as of 2019. While the number was expected to increase further in the coming years, the number of free subscription music streaming service users was expected to slightly decrease from 2020 onward.

Nigeria has the highest digital music users in selected countries worldwide. 91 percent of consumers in Nigeria listen to this kind of media. Following in second place is Philippines, where 88 percent of respondents consume this media type.Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

The number of subscription music streaming service users in Japan was estimated at approximately 21.6 million as of 2019. The number included both paid subscription music streaming service users and free subscription music streaming service users. It was expected to increase to more than 29 million by 2023.

The number of users is forecast to experience significant growth in all segments in 2027. Comparing the two different segments for the year 2027, the segment 'Music Streaming' leads the ranking with 161.34 million users. Contrastingly, 'Music Downloads' is ranked last, with 46.93 million users. Their difference, compared to Music Streaming, lies at 114.41 million users. Find other insights concerning similar markets and segments, such as a comparison of average revenue per user (ARPU) in Italy and a comparison of average revenue per unit (ARPU) in Austria. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

The graph shows the number of paid music streaming subscribers worldwide from 2016 to 2018. According to the source, there were 278 million paid streaming music subscribers at the end of 2018, up from 198.6 million in the previous year.

The graph shows the distribution of paid online music accounts in Latin America in the second quarter of 2017, by selected countries. When only Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru were considered, 46 percent of online music subscribers in the presented quarter were from Brazil. In the second quarter of 2017, there were 11.2 million paid online music accounts in these six Latin American countries.

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.

The number of users in the 'Music Streaming' segment of the digital media market in Poland was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2027 by in total 0.5 million users (+9.51 percent). After the fifth consecutive increasing year, the indicator is estimated to reach 5.75 million users and therefore a new peak in 2027. Find more information concerning Thailand and the Philippines. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

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.

The number of users in the 'Music Streaming' segment of the digital media market in Vietnam was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2027 by in total 0.4 million users (+10.44 percent). After the tenth consecutive increasing year, the indicator is estimated to reach 4.27 million users and therefore a new peak in 2027. Notably, the number of users of the 'Music Streaming' segment of the digital media market was continuously increasing over the past years.Find other key market indicators concerning the revenue growth and average revenue per user (ARPU). The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

According to estimates, Amazon Music had 55 million subscribers worldwide in January 2020. This figure includes individuals subscribed to any of its services, as well as the free, ad-supported option for non-Prime customers.