Global recorded music revenues rose 6.5% to $36.2bn in 2024, says MIDiA Research
FrankyNelly
IFPI is expected to release the official global recorded music revenue results for 2024 this month, but in the meantime, the clever number crunchers at MIDiA Research have published their own estimates.
One of the key takeaways from MIDiA’s Recorded Music Market Share report, released on Thursday (March 13), is this: Global recorded music revenue growth is slowing, and going forward, artists and rightsholders should focus on growing expanded rights (i.e., better monetizing superfans) rather than counting on streaming revenue growth.
And the headline stat from MIDiA’s new report: Global recorded music revenues rose 6.5% YoY to $36.2 billion. That marks a slowdown from 2023, when revenues rose 9.7% YoY, per MIDiA’s estimates.
This year’s MIDiA numbers aren’t directly comparable to prior years, as the research firm told us that “due to some changes to our recognition of non-major label revenue (including some removal of double-counted revenue for labels that also act as distributors), total historical revenue figures and market shares have changed slightly compared to previous editions of this report” and that “as a consequence, all major label market shares have increased slightly.”
The impact of music streaming is “lessening,” MIDiA said, and 2024 marked the first year in which streaming’s share of total recorded music didn’t increase.
According to MIDiA, Streaming revenue grew 6.2% YoY to $22.2 billion, compared to a growth rate of 10.3% in 2023. Streaming represented 61.3% of all revenues, versus 62.5% the year before.
“The contribution of streaming to overall industry growth also fell to 58.5%, down from 64.6% in 2023,” MIDiA said.
“The much-anticipated streaming revenue deceleration – despite recent price increases – has now arrived. Industry attention is turning to super-premium tiers and new monetization models to re-ignite growth.”
MIDiA
The report added: “The much-anticipated streaming revenue deceleration – despite recent price increases – has now arrived. Industry attention is turning to super-premium tiers and new monetization models to re-ignite growth.”
MIDiA suggests future revenue growth will increasingly rely on expanded rights – meaning things such as merchandise, sponsorships, branding, and other sources of revenue outside of sales of music itself.
MIDiA’s latest data backs up that assertion. Expanded rights accounted for $4.1 billion in revenue in 2024, up 17% YoY from $3.5 billion in 2023. That’s a significantly faster pace of growth than the rest of recorded music. Expanded rights accounted for 11.3% of recorded music revenues in 2024, versus 10% in 2023.
(MIDiA counts expanded rights as part of recorded music revenues. Excluding expanded rights, recorded music revenues in 2024 would have come in at $32.1 billion.)
Graphic: MIDiA
“With so much uncertainty in the global economy, 6.5% annual revenue growth is an achievement in itself. Nonetheless, the streaming slowdown, coupled with another down year for physical, has emphasised a steadily increasing amount of market volatility,” said Mark Mulligan, Managing Director and Senior Music Analyst at MIDiA Research.
“Which makes the fast growing expanded rights segment so important for the industry. Not only does it do the crucial job of monetizing fandom, it is fast becoming a hedge against stodgy streaming growth and the yo-yoing physical sector.”
In terms of market share, non-major labels saw their share of revenues grow for the third consecutive year. Their revenues grew by 8.4% YoY to $5.4 billion, outpacing the 5.4% growth posted by major labels, according to MIDiA.
Among the majors, only Sony Music Group (SMG) increased its market share in 2024. Its 10.2% YoY increase in revenue resulted in a 700-basis-point increase in market share to 21.7%. Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, lost 100 basis points of market share, MIDiA reported.
“SMG was also the fastest growing major label in the first half of the decade, growing by a total of 73.9% between 2020 and 2024,” MIDiA noted.
“The fast growing expanded rights segment [is] so important for the industry. Not only does it do the crucial job of monetizing fandom, it is fast becoming a hedge against stodgy streaming growth and the yo-yoing physical sector.”
Mark Mulligan, MIDiA
Self-releasing artists are also on the rise – both in terms of revenue captured and in the sheer number of these artists.
MIDiA’s “Artists Direct” segment – meaning self-releasing artists who distribute their music through platforms like CD Baby, DistroKid, and TuneCore – saw revenue increase 4.7% YoY to $2.0 billion in 2024. That’s a slightly faster pace of growth than the year before, when this segment’s revenues rose 4.5%.
That’s despite “headwinds” such as the minimum stream thresholds to receive payouts from streaming services, MIDiA noted.
Spotify last year introduced a new rule that it would no longer pay for tracks that got fewer than 1,000 plays over the prior 12 months. A similar Deezer’s “artist-centric” payment model has a similar principle, in that tracks that receive fewer than 1,000 streams and 500 unique listeners per month see lower royalty payouts than tracks that exceed that threshold.
However, DIY artists are facing another “headwind” – the rapid increase in the number of these artists. There are now 8.2 million self-releasing artists, MIDiA said, and the rate of their growth is three-and-a-half times faster than their revenues are growing.
“One crucial element to keep an eye on is the long tail of independent artists,” Mulligan said.
“Measures like minimum earnings thresholds are taking a toll on Artists Direct revenue, and helping major labels throw speed bumps in the ongoing erosion of their market share. Yet it is doing nothing to halt the growth of releasing artists who compete for ears.”
MIDiA’s global recorded music revenue growth estimate of 6.5% YoY is roughly in line with Universal Music Group’s recorded music revenue growth in the 12 months to the end of December 2024: UMG’s recorded music revenues grew 6.4% YoY to €8.901 billion ($9.63bn) in 2024.Music Business Worldwide
