In 2015, it took an average of 2,729 days — roughly seven and a half years — for a song to reach one billion streams on Spotify.
By 2025, that milestone was being crossed in just 197 days.
That striking acceleration is among the headline findings in Chartmetric’s third annual Year in Music report, which draws on the platform’s data from millions of tracks and artist profiles collected since 2016 to offer a snapshot of how the global music industry evolved over the past 12 months.
The report, which you can read in full here, spans nine chapters covering everything from artist development and genre trends to streaming dynamics, sync licensing, songwriting, and the shifting geography of global hits.
Below are some of the report’s key findings.
1. Hit lifecycles are shortening — and superstardom is harder to sustain
According to Chartmetric’s research, in 2024, Spotify’s Top 10 most-streamed songs were dominated by new music, with just three of the 10 carrying over from the prior year.
In 2025, that ratio flipped dramatically: only three of the top 10 were released that year, meaning the majority of the platform’s biggest songs were older tracks that continued to accumulate streams well beyond their initial release window.
The platform’s annual Wrapped campaign confirmed that Bad Bunny reclaimed the title of Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2025, while Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ Die With A Smile, released the prior year, was the platform’s top global song.
At the same time, however, three times as many artists reached Chartmetric’s ‘Superstar’ tier in 2025, suggesting that while artists are breaking through faster than ever, sustaining long-term chart dominance is becoming increasingly difficult.
2. Regional genres are driving global growth
One of the report’s most significant areas of focus is the rising influence of regional genres and non-Anglophone markets on global streaming.
Chartmetric data shows that genres such as Bollywood, K-pop, Brazilian funk, and Reggaeton are among the fastest-growing sounds among the platform’s top 1,000 artists since 2020.
That growth is reflected geographically: South Korea now accounts for five times as many artists in the top 1,000 compared to 2020, India’s share has surged from 0.6% to 11%, and Puerto Rico has maintained a 5% presence — an outsized contribution given its relatively small population.
The findings are consistent with broader market data. Luminate‘s latest year-end report found that India’s premium streams grew by 42% year-on-year in 2025, while the IFPI’s Global Music Report 2025 showed Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East & North Africa among the fastest-growing regions for recorded music revenue
3. Global export and import dynamics are shifting
In terms of global music flows, the report found that South Korea and Norway emerged as leading music exporters in 2025, while listening hubs across Southeast Asia and Latin America stood out as major importers, acting as trigger markets that help amplify international hits.
Major labels continued to dominate in most countries, but Chartmetric noted that independent labels remained highly competitive — particularly in markets with strong cultural identities — by leveraging deep connections to local scenes and audiences.
4. Sync accelerated both new and catalog hits
Sync licensing continued to play a meaningful role in shaping the year’s biggest tracks, with a notable split between television and film.
According to Chartmetric, 53% of TV syncs in 2025 featured catalog music, while films leaned toward newer releases, with only 20% of movie syncs drawing from catalog. High-profile placements — including music from the Netflix hit film K-Pop Demon Hunters — drove renewed momentum for both emerging and legacy tracks.
5. Songwriting remains collaborative — but artist-led
On the songwriting front, the report found that collaboration remains central to today’s hit-making process, with more than half of 2025’s charting tracks featuring multiple collaborators.
Yet artists remain deeply embedded in the creative process: half of the top 10 songwriters by number of charting songs in 2025 were the performing artists themselves, including Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and The Weeknd.
6. Streaming milestones are accelerating exponentially
The report’s headline streaming stat underscores just how dramatically the scale of the global streaming economy has shifted.
A decade ago, reaching one billion streams was a rare milestone reserved for a handful of tracks. By 2025, the average time to hit that threshold had fallen from 2,729 days in 2015 to just 197 days — a reflection of widening streaming adoption, globalized fanbases, and the growing role of algorithmic discovery.
For context: in October 2023, BTS member Jungkook’s Seven broke the record for the fastest song to reach one billion Spotify streams at 108 days.
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ Die With A Smile, released in August 2024, broke the Spotify record for the fastest song to reach 1 billion streams, achieving the milestone in just 96 days on November 20, 2024.
By September 2025, The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights had become the first song to surpass five billion streams on the platform.
You can read Chartmetric’s full 2025 Year in Music report here.Music Business Worldwide
