The recorded music business is led by streaming, but the market is not entirely digital. In the United States, recorded music revenue reached $17.1 billion in 2023, while vinyl revenue reached $1.4 billion and vinyl albums outsold CDs in units. Worldwide, recorded music trade revenue reached US$29.6 billion in 2024, with streaming accounting for 69.0% of the total.
Contents
- U.S. market at a glance
- Streaming and subscriptions
- Vinyl, CDs, and downloads
- The global recorded music market
- Regional differences
- Platforms, listening, and repertoire
U.S. market at a glance
The RIAA 2023 Year-End Revenue Statistics place the U.S. recorded music market at $17.1 billion in revenue, an 8% year-over-year increase. The same report gives a more precise total recorded music value of $17.1068 billion. Wholesale value reached $11.0 billion, up 7% year over year. These are different measures of market value, so they should not be treated as interchangeable.
The U.S. market shipped 253.1 million recorded music units in 2023. Digital shipments represented 89% of total shipments, while physical shipments represented 11%. Revenue and shipments tell different stories: a format can account for a small share of units while still producing meaningful revenue through pricing and product mix.
Streaming generated $14.4 billion, equal to 84% of total U.S. recorded music revenue. Paid subscriptions generated $11.2 billion and represented 78% of streaming revenue. The RIAA report describes paid subscriptions as nearly two-thirds of total U.S. recorded music revenue. Average paid on-demand subscriptions reached 96.8 million, growing 5.7% during 2023.
Other income streams remain part of the market. Ad-supported on-demand streaming generated $1.9 billion and contributed 11% of total U.S. recorded music revenue. Digital and customized radio revenue reached $1.3 billion, while SoundExchange distributions reached $1.0 billion. Other ad-supported streaming revenue contributed $317.7 million.
Streaming and subscriptions
The U.S. figures show how strongly recurring access has reshaped recorded music. Paid subscriptions are not merely one category among many: their $11.2 billion contribution was the largest named component in the RIAA 2023 Year-End Revenue Statistics. They also made up 78% of streaming revenue, showing that the streaming economy is weighted toward paid access rather than advertising alone.
Limited-tier subscriptions generated $1.0 billion in U.S. revenue in 2023, but that revenue fell 4%. This decline contrasts with the 5.7% growth in average paid on-demand subscriptions. The two measures describe different subscription products and should not be combined into a single growth rate.
At global level, the IFPI Global Music Report 2025 recorded more than US$20.4 billion in streaming revenue in 2024. Streaming represented 69.0% of global recorded music revenue. Global subscription streaming revenue rose 9.5%, and global subscription accounts reached 752 million after growing 10.6%.
The global split between paid and advertising-supported streaming also matters. Paid subscription streaming revenue increased 9.5% in 2024, while ad-supported streaming revenue grew 1.2%, according to the IFPI Global Music Report 2025. The different growth rates indicate that paid accounts were expanding faster than advertising-supported revenue during that measurement year.
Spotify’s own Q4 2024 earnings provide a platform-level snapshot rather than a full-market total. Spotify ended the quarter with 675 million monthly active users and 263 million subscribers. It reported €4.2 billion in quarterly revenue, a 32.2% gross margin, and €477 million in operating income. These Spotify figures are company results for Q4 2024, not measures of the entire streaming industry.
Vinyl, CDs, and downloads
Physical music has a smaller shipment share than digital music in the United States, but it remains commercially important. Total physical revenue reached $1.9 billion in 2023 and rose 11%, according to the RIAA 2023 Year-End Revenue Statistics. Vinyl contributed $1.4 billion, or 71% of physical-format revenue.
Vinyl grew for the 17th consecutive year in the United States in 2023. Vinyl albums also outsold CDs in units, 43 million to 37 million. CD revenue nevertheless reached $537.1 million and rose 11.3%. The unit and revenue comparisons show why vinyl and CD performance should be considered separately: vinyl led units and physical revenue, while CDs still generated more than half a billion dollars.
| U.S. format measure | 2023 result | Change or share |
|---|---|---|
| Total physical revenue | $1.9 billion | Up 11% |
| Vinyl revenue | $1.4 billion | 71% of physical revenue |
| CD revenue | $537.1 million | Up 11.3% |
| Vinyl albums shipped | 43 million | Outsold CDs in units |
| CD albums shipped | 37 million | Below vinyl in units |
Digital downloads moved in the opposite direction. Total digital download revenue fell to $434.1 million, down 12.2%. Digital single sales were $190.8 million, and digital album sales were $204.7 million. The reported categories do not sum to the full digital download total because the market includes other download revenue, so no additional arithmetic is needed to interpret the trend.
The broader U.S. recorded music picture also includes synchronization royalties, which reached $410.9 million in 2023. Synchronization is distinct from the recorded music format categories above, so it is best read as another revenue stream rather than added to physical or streaming figures without a defined accounting basis.
Worldwide, the direction is more mixed. Physical-format revenue declined 3.1% in 2024, according to the IFPI Global Music Report 2025, while global vinyl revenue grew 4.6% and recorded its 18th consecutive year of growth. The U.S. and global vinyl figures cover different years and geographies, but both show continued vinyl growth within a market dominated by streaming.
The global recorded music market
Global recorded music trade revenue reached US$29.6 billion in 2024 and rose 4.8%, according to the IFPI Global Music Report 2025. Streaming was the largest global component at 69.0% of revenue and more than US$20.4 billion. These are trade revenues reported at global level, so they are not directly comparable with every U.S. retail or wholesale measure.
Performance rights were another major global category. Performance rights revenues reached US$2.9 billion in 2024 and grew 5.9%. As with synchronization royalties in the U.S. data, performance rights represent a rights-related income stream and should not be assumed to overlap perfectly with a format-revenue total.
The global figures point to a market that is still expanding, but at different speeds depending on the revenue source. Overall recorded music revenue grew 4.8%. Subscription streaming grew 9.5%, vinyl grew 4.6%, and ad-supported streaming grew 1.2%. Physical-format revenue declined 3.1% globally. Each percentage describes a separate category in 2024 and should not be used as a forecast for the others.
Listening activity is also measured in very large units. Luminate’s 2024 Midyear Music Report reported 2.29 trillion global on-demand audio streams at midyear 2024. That is a midyear measurement of on-demand audio streams, not a full-year revenue estimate. It illustrates the scale of consumption behind the subscription and advertising markets.
Regional differences
The IFPI Global Music Report 2025 shows substantial geographic variation in both growth and business mix. The USA and Canada represented 40.3% of global recorded music revenue in 2024. Europe represented 29.5% and grew 8.3% during the year. These shares identify the largest regional blocks in the reported global market, while the growth rates show that market size and growth momentum are different measures.
Latin America recorded 22.5% revenue growth in 2024 and had an 87.8% streaming share of recorded music revenue. The Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, grew 22.8%, with streaming accounting for 99.5% of regional recorded music revenue. Those streaming shares are regional composition measures, not global averages.
Sub-Saharan Africa recorded 22.6% revenue growth and surpassed US$100 million in recorded music revenue, reaching US$110 million in 2024. The region’s growth rate was close to those of Latin America and MENA, but its reported revenue base was much smaller. This is a useful reminder that percentage growth and absolute market size answer different questions.
The contrast between regions is especially clear when compared with the global 69.0% streaming share. Latin America’s 87.8% and MENA’s 99.5% indicate markets where streaming accounts for a larger portion of recorded music revenue than the global average. The supplied regional figures do not provide equivalent format detail for every geography, so broader conclusions about vinyl or CDs by region would not be supported here.
Platforms, listening, and repertoire
Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Music Report preview said U.S. streaming made up 91.3% of equivalent activity in 2024. The same preview reported that ex-U.S. audio streaming grew 17.3% year over year, compared with 6.4% growth in the U.S. These measures describe streaming activity, not recorded music revenue, and the comparison is between markets outside the U.S. and the U.S. market.
Genre and artist representation can also be described through streaming shares. Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Music Report follow-up reported that R&B/Hip-Hop held a 25.3% streaming share in 2024. For Pop, solo female artists made up 63.4% of the genre’s Top 100 artists by streaming share. These figures concern category composition and artist ranking, not total industry revenue.
Luminate’s 2023 Year-End Music Report summary reported that U.S. on-demand audio streaming from female artists reached a 30.4% share in 2023, up 4.2 percentage points. Women held three of the five most-streamed U.S. songs and seven of the 15 most-streamed U.S. songs in that year. The figures describe U.S. streaming and the specified ranking groups, so they should not be generalized to all global listening.
At the individual-song level, Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Music Report blog reported that the global top song, “Beautiful Things,” generated 2.58 billion audio streams. This is a single-song global streaming result for 2024, not a count of unique listeners or a measure of revenue.
Taken together, the available statistics describe a layered music economy. Streaming supplies the largest share of revenue and activity, subscriptions are the strongest named U.S. and global growth engine among streaming categories, and physical music remains relevant through vinyl. Regional growth is fastest in several markets outside the largest North American and European revenue blocs, while platform, genre, and artist data show how consumption is distributed within the overall market.