Music subscriber market shares 2022

MIDiA has just released its annual ‘Music subscriber market shares’ report and dataset, with data for 23 DSPs across 33 different markets (clients can access it here). Here are some of the key global trends:

Music subscriptions may be recession-resilient, as China leads the way

As the world edges towards a recession, the music streaming market continues to stand strong. Despite indications of slowdown in some markets, the global music subscriber market remains buoyant. Growth, though, is uneven, with a number of leading streaming services outpacing the rest, especially the Chinese ones, which are now setting the global pace. 

Home entertainment tends to perform well during recessions, not least because people are inclined to cut down on leisure spend (eating out, bars, clubs, etc.), and thus spend more time at home. In previous recessions, lipstick sales boomed, reflecting their role as an affordable luxury that consumers turn to when they can no longer afford the more expensive luxuries. Music subscriptions have a good chance of playing a similar role in the coming recession.

The early signs are positive (subscriber growth was stronger in the full year of 2021 than 2020), and though the first half (H1) of 2022 growth was down from H1 2021, this reflects the mature state of the streaming market in many markets, as much as it does global economic headwinds.

The evolution of the global music subscriber market is beginning to fork between the leading Western digital service providers (DSPs) and those in Asia – China especially so. Nearly all the leading DSPs continue to experience strong subscriber growth, but none more so than Chinese DSPs Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and NetEase Cloud Music. 

These were the key trends in 2021 and the first half of 2022:

• Subscribers: There were 616.2 million subscribers by the mid-point of 2022, up by 7.1% from the end of 2021. Total net subscriber additions for the first six months of 2022 (42.1 million) were down on the 53.8 million that were added one year earlier, hinting at the slowing global economy. However, more subscribers were added in 2021 than 2020
  
• Revenue: The $12.9 billion of subscription label trade revenue generated in 2021 was up by 23.1% on 2020, and it was the first year since 2017 that revenue growth exceeded subscriber growth, resulting in a 1.0% increase in global annual ARPU, reaching $22.42
  
• Spotify: With 187.8 million subscribers in Q2 2022, Spotify remained by far the largest DSP. However, its market share has steadily eroded since Q4 2020, and its Q2 2022 share of 30.5% was down from a high of 33.2% in Q2 2018
  
• Tencent Music Entertainment and NetEase Cloud Music: Spotify’s declining market share has much to do with the growth of the Chinese market (where Spotify does not operate). In Q4 2021, TME overtook Amazon Music to become the third largest DSP globally, and in Q2 2022 it had 82.7 million subscribers (13.4% market share). China has long been the world’s second largest subscriber market and is on track to soon surpass the US as the world’s largest
  
• Apple, Amazon, and YouTube: Amazon Music was the fourth largest DSP, with 82.2 million subscribers, and YouTube Music was fifth, with 55.1 million. Both gained share between Q2 2021 and Q2 2022, growing faster than the total market. While YouTube and Amazon both gained share in 2022, albeit it at a declining rate, second-placed Apple Music continued its long-term trend of underperforming the market, with its 84.7 million subscribers recording a 13.8% market share, down 1.2% from Q2 2021. 

The global music subscriber market is approaching a pivot point, with the slowdown in mature, Western markets contrasting with more dynamic growth in other regions. It is realistic to assume that the global recession and the organic maturation of the global subscriber market will result in some slowdown of growth in 2023, even if the sector remains otherwise resilient.

The slowing growth should be the catalyst for what needs to come next, especially in developed markets: unlocking growth pockets through differentiation. Western DSPs have managed to grow with largely undifferentiated product propositions. Music rightsholders should explore creative ways in which they can empower their DSP partners with differentiated content assets, enabling them to super-serve specific consumer segments and thus unlock extra growth within them.

If you are not yet a MIDiA client and would like to find out how to get access to this report and data then email stephen@midiaresearch.com

Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

MIDiA’s annual music subscriber market shares report is now available here (see below for more details of the report). Here are some of the key findings.

The global base of music subscribers continues to grow strongly with 523.9 million music subscribers at the end of Q2 2021, which was up by 109.5 million (26.4%) from one year earlier. Crucially, this was faster growth than the prior year. There is a difference between revenue and subscribers – with ARPU deflators, such as the rise of multi-user plans and the growth of lower-spending emerging markets – but growth in monetised users represents the foundation stone of the digital service provider (DSP) streaming market. So, accelerating growth at this relatively late stage of the streaming market’s evolution is clearly positive.

Spotify remains the DSP with the highest market share (31%), but this was down from 33% in Q2 2020 and 34% in Q2 2019. With Apple Music being a distant second with 15% market share, and Spotify adding more subscribers in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021 than any other single DSP, there is no risk of Spotify losing its leading position anytime soon – but the erosion of its share is steady and persistent. Amazon Music once again out-performed Spotify in terms of growth (25% compared to 20%), but the standout success story among Western DSPs was YouTube Music, for the second successive year. Google was once the laggard of the space, but the launch of YouTube Music has transformed its fortunes, growing by more than 50% in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021. YouTube Music was the only Western DSP to increase global market share during this the period. YouTube Music particularly resonates among Gen Z and younger Millennials, which should have alarm bells ringing for Spotify, as their core base of Millennial subscribers from the 2010s in the West are now beginning to age.

But the biggest subscriber growth came from emerging markets. Between them, Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and NetEase Cloud Music added 35.7 million subscribers in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021. Together, they accounted for 18% of global market shares, despite being available only in China. Yandex, in Russia, was the other big gainer, doubling its subscriber base to reach 2% of global market share.

Combined, Yandex, TME and NetEase account for 20% of subscriber market share, but they drive 37% of all subscriber growth in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021.

The strong growth in subscribers holds an extra meaning going into 2022. The surge in non-DSP streaming in 2021 means that the streaming market is no longer dependent on the revenue contribution of maturing Western subscriber markets (nor indeed ARPU-diluting emerging markets). With non-DSP streaming revenue looking set to have contributed between a quarter and a third of streaming revenue increase in 2021, streaming revenues look set for strong growth, even if subscriber growth lessens. That is what you call a diversified market.

A little more detail on the subscriber market shares report:

The report has 23 pages and 13 figures featuring country level subscriber numbers, revenues and demographics by DSP. The accompanying data set has quarterly subscriber numbers and annual revenue figures from Q4 2015 to Q2 2016 by DSP by country, with 33 markets and 27 DSPs. The report and dataset is available to MIDiA subscribers hereand also available for individual purchase via the same link.

Email stephen@midiaresearch.com for more details.

Music market shares: independent labels and artists are even bigger than you thought

It has been a long time since the music industry has been in such good shape. So long, in fact, that there are not too many executives left who worked through the pre-crash days. 2021 was the year in which the major label groups capitalised on the momentum, with Universal and Warner going public, and Sony going on a spending spree. This was off the back of a strong 2020, in which the majors collectively generated $15.1 billion, giving them a market share of 66.1%. So far, so normal, but all is not quite as it seems. This market share may be how the world sees the majors’ success, but it significantly underplays the revenue contribution of independents. MIDiA decided to fix that.

At the start of this year MIDiA fielded a large-scale, global survey of independent labels, collecting billions of dollars’ worth of revenue figures. We think that it is the most comprehensive survey of the independent sector done yet. In the survey, we asked labels about a range of factors, which enabled us to paint a complete picture of the state of the independent sector in today’s music business. Crucially, we collected detailed data on distributors, and this is where the under reporting of independents comes into play.

The undoubted benefit of the streaming era is that it presents artists and labels of all sizes with the ability to reach global audiences. But most independent record labels do not have sufficient scale nor resources to license and distribute directly to streaming services, and thus turn to the ever-expanding marketplace of digital distributors. Never shy to an opportunity, the major record labels have established themselves as key players in this space, distributing independent labels either directly or via their distribution arms. The value that they deliver to independents is clear, but the revenue goes via the majors’ accounts, and so major label revenues are boosted by independent revenue, thus inflating the market share of the majors. With the data we tracked in our independent label survey, we were able to unpack this ‘embedded’ distributed independent label revenue from the majors’ total to arrive at the ‘actual’ market share of independents, based on who holds the copyright, not simply on who distributes it.

Measuring market share on this ‘ownership’ basis, independent market share (which includes artists direct) goes from 33.9% (the ‘distribution’ basis) to 43.1%, i.e., an additional 9.2% of share. Or, put another way, an addition of $2.1 billion. The independent share was up from 41.3% in 2018, and in 2020, independent revenue (on an ‘ownership’ basis) grew by 12% compared to a total recorded music market growth of 12%. All of which means that independents (labels and artists) are a) bigger than standard industry measures suggest, and b) growing faster than the total market and are thus increasing market share. Which makes the majors’ strategy even smarter. If they were not so active distributors of independents, they would simply be ceding all of the revenue, instead of, as they are, capturing some it and being able to report the market share as their own.

These findings and much more (including regional market data and data on label operations (e.g., A+R, marketing, catalogue size, years in operation)), are available to MIDiA clients in this full report.

All independent labels that took part in the survey have already received a copy of the report. If you want a copy of next year’s edition, be sure to take part in the next survey when we announce it!

Amazon Music: From Dark Horse to Thoroughbred

Neatly ahead of Spotify’s Q4 earnings, Amazon has taken the rare step of announcing subscriber metrics for Amazon Music (inclusive of Prime Music and Music Unlimited). Amazon Music closed 2019 with 55 million ‘customers’ across free and paid. Based on our Q2 2019 numbers for Amazon and the fact that Amazon’s free tier was only rolled out in late 2019 across a few markets, MIDiA estimates Amazon Music’s actual subscriber number to be 50 million. This implies a subscriber growth of 16 million on 2018. Make no mistake, this is a really strong performance. From a bit-part player in 2015 and 2016, Amazon Music is now firmly established in streaming’s leading pack and looks set to overtake Apple Music in 2020. What’s more, unlike Apple and Spotify, Amazon’s wider business is not a top-tier player in dozens of countries, so Amazon Music’s geographic footprint is uneven – making its global figure even more impressive. Indeed, underneath this headline figure Amazon is the number two player in some of the world’s biggest music markets. Amazon is now in the big league.

Since Q4 2016, Spotify has averaged 34.8% global music subscriber market share, meaning that despite fierce competition it has managed to stay ahead of the pack, actually increasing share slightly from 34.2% to 35.3%. Amazon’s success is in some respects even more impressive. In Q4 2015 Amazon Music’s subscriber base was just 18% of Spotify’s. By Q4 2019 (assuming Spotify hit the 124 million that MIDiA predicted for Q4 2019) Amazon’s 55 million subscribers represented 40% of Spotify’s – more than doubling its relative scale.

However, the DSP that should be paying most attention is Apple Music. Over the same period Amazon Music went from 49% of Apple’s subscriber base to 82%. At this rate Amazon could trump Apple for second place in 2020. It has already done so in a number of major music markets, including Germany, the UK and Japan – three of the world’s top four recorded music markets.

Extending the market

Amazon is often competing around, rather than with, Spotify and Apple. The combination of Prime Music and Echo / Alexa means that Amazon is extending the addressable market for streaming by unlocking older, higher-income households that do not fit the young, mobile-first demographic mold that the streaming market generally trades upon. Ellie Goulding’s Amazon exclusive ‘River’ claiming the UK Christmas number one spot illustrates that this under-served segment is far from a niche. Of course, Amazon is now also competing for the younger, mobile-centric consumer – Music Unlimited grew by more than 50% in 2019 – but, along with its new ad-supported and HD tiers, Amazon is pursuing a segmented strategy that is pushing beyond its older Prime Music beachhead.

Amazon Music’s success trades heavily on Amazon’s overall brand reach and existing customer relationships, so its global brand reach will always be less evenly distributed than Apple and Spotify’s. However, throughout 2018 and 2019 Amazon has been assertively building its reach in non-core markets through music and video. Traditionally Amazon has been a retailer first and a content brand second. Now, in newer markets across the globe, Amazon is building a reputation as a digital content provider first and retailer second. Though Amazon is clearly going to remain a retailer first globally, streaming is proving to be a powerful tool for establishing the company in markets that would have previously taken years and hundreds of millions of dollars to set up as fully functioning e-commerce markets.

While rightsholders will have well-grounded concerns about Amazon’s corporate objectives of using content to help sell consumer products, what is now undeniable is that Amazon Music and Video are both top-tier content services. Back in 2017 we suggested that the dark horse of Amazon was emerging from the shadows; now it is clear to see it is a thoroughbred in its own right.

State of the Streaming Nation 3.0: Multi-Paced Growth

Regular followers of MIDiA will know that one of our flagship releases is our State of the Streaming Nation report. Now into its third year, this report is the definitive assessment of the streaming music market. Featuring 16 data charts, 37 pages and 5,700 words, this year’s edition of the State of the Streaming Nation covers everything from user behaviour, weekly active users of the leading streaming apps, willingness to pay, adoption drivers, revenues, forecasts, subscriber market shares, label market shares, tenure and playlist usage. The consumer data covers the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria and the UK, while the market data and forecasts cover 35 markets. The report includes the report PDF, a full Powerpoint deck and a six sheet Excel file with more than 23,000 data points. This really is everything you need to know about the global streaming market.

The report is immediately available to MIDiA clients and is also now available for purchase from our report store here. And – for a very limited-time offer, until midnight 31^stJuly (i.e. Wednesday) the report is discounted by 50% to £2,500. This is a strictly time-limited offer, with the price returning to the standard £5,000 on Thursday.

Below are some details of the report.

The 20,000 Foot View: 2018 was yet another strong year for streaming music growth, with the leading streaming services consolidating their market shares. Consumer adoption continues to grow but as leading markets mature, future growth will depend upon mid-tier markets and later on emerging markets. Disruption continues to echo throughout the market with artists direct making up ground and Spotify spreading its strategic wings. Utilising proprietary supply- and demand-side data, this third edition of MIDiA’s State of the Streaming Nation pulls together all the must-have data on the global streaming market to give you the definitive picture of where streaming is.

Key findings: 

THE MARKET

• Streaming revenue was up $X billion on 2017 to reach $X billion in 2018 in label trade, representing X% of total recorded music market growth
• Universal Music consolidated its market-leading role with $X billion, representing X% of all streaming revenue
• There were X million music subscribers globally in Q4 2018 with Spotify, Apple and Amazon accounting for X% of all subscribers, up from X% in Q4 2015
• With X% weekly active user (WAU) penetration YouTube dominates streaming audiences, representing X% of all of the WAU music audiences surveyed

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

• X% of consumers stream music for free, peaking at X% in South Korea and dropping to just X% in Japan
• X% of consumers are music subscribers, peaking in developed streaming markets Sweden (X%) and South Korea (X%)
• Free streaming penetration is high among those aged 16-19 (X%), 20-24 (X%) and 25-34 (X%) while among those aged 55+ penetration is just X%
• Podcast penetration is X% with pronounced country-level variation, ranging from just X% in Austria to X% in Sweden

ADOPTION

• 61% of music subscribers report having become subscribers either via a free trial or a $1 for three months paid trial
• Costing less than $X is the most-cited adoption driver for music subscriptions at X%
• Today’s Top Hits and the Global Top 50 claim the joint top spot for Spotify playlists among users, both X%
• As of Q1 2019 there were X YouTube music videos viewed one billion-plus times, of which X were two billion-plus view videos and X were three billion-plus

OUTLOOK

• In retail terms global streaming music revenues were $X billion in 2018 in retail terms, up X% on 2017, and will grow to $X billion in 2026
• There were X million music subscribers in 2018, up from X million in 2017 with Xmillion individual subscriptions

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Alexa, Amazon Music Unlimited, Amazon Prime Music, Anchor, Anghami, Apple, Apple Music, Beats One, CDBaby, Deezer, Deezer Flow, Echo, Gimlet, Google, Google Play Music, KuGou, Kuwo, Loudr, MelOn, Napster, Netflix, Pandora, Parcast, QQ Music, RapCaviar, Rock Classics, Rock This, Sony Music, Soundcloud, SoundTrap, Spotify, Tencent Music Entertainment, Tidal, Today’s Top Hits, T-Series, Tunecore, Universal Music, Warner Music, YouTube

Announcing MIDiA’s Streaming Services Market Shares Report

As the streaming music market matures, the bar is continually raised for the quality of data required, both in terms of granularity and accuracy. At MIDiA we have worked hard to earn a reputation for high-quality, reliable datasets that go far beyond what is available elsewhere. This gives our clients a competitive edge. We are now taking this approach a major step forward with the launch of MIDiA’s Streaming Services Market Shares report. This is our most comprehensive streaming dataset yet, and there is, quite simply, nothing else like it out there. Knowing the size of streaming revenues, or the global subscriber counts of music services is useful, but it isn’t enough. Nor even, is knowing country level streaming revenue figures. So, we built a global market shares model that breaks out subscription revenues (trade and retail), subscribers, and subscription market shares for more than 30 music services at country level, across 30 countries and regions. You want to know how much subscription revenue Spotify is generating in Canada? How many subscribers Apple Music has in Germany? How much subscription revenue QQ Music is generating China? This is the report for you. Here are some highlights:

 

• At the end of 2016 there were 132.6 million music subscribers, up from 76.8 million in 2015
• In Q4 2016 Spotify’s subscriber market share was 35% and it had $2,766 million in retail revenue
• Apple Music was second with 21 million subscribers at the end of 2016, a 15.6% market share and it had $912 million in retail revenue
• In 2016 Apple was the largest driver of digital music revenue across Apple Music and iTunes
• The US is the largest music subscription market, which Spotify leads with 38% subscriber market share
• The UK is Europe’s largest streaming market, which Spotify also leads
• China’s subscriber base is the second largest globally, but it ranks just 13th in revenue terms
• Japan is the world’s third largest subscription market, in which Amazon has the largest subscriber market share
• Brazil is Latin America’s largest music subscription market

The report contains 23 pages and 13 charts with full country detail as well as audience engagement metrics. The dataset includes four worksheets and a comprehensive methodology statement.

Streaming Services Market Shares is available right now to MIDiA premium subscribers. If you would like to learn more about how to access MIDiA’s analysis and data, email Stephen@midiaresearch.com.

The report and data is also available as a standalone purchase on MIDiA’s report store as part of our ‘Streaming Music Metrics Bundle’. This bundle additionally includes MIDiA’s ‘State of The Streaming Nation 2.1’. This is our mid-year 2017 update to the exhaustive assessment of the streaming music market first published in May. It includes data on revenue, forecasts, consumer attitudes and behaviour, YouTube, app usage and audience trends.

Examples of country graphics (data labels removed in this preview)