It’s become a perennial trade music industry story: The combined global market share of the three major record companies and Merlin on Spotify is in decline.
Well, no more.
In 2025, according to Spotify, this long-running trend was actually reversed. By a sliver, anyway.
Before we get into the numbers, some important clarification:
- This crucial market-share stat, confirmed by Spotify in its annual fiscal report, reveals the platform’s yearly ‘stream share’ for all recorded music represented by Universal, Sony, Warner – including their ‘indie’ distribution arms – plus Merlin.
- ‘Stream share’ in this context means the combined entities’ market share of the total global volume of music streams on Spotify (i.e. not including audiobooks and podcasts).
- Entities not covered by the stat include any label or distributor that licenses Spotify outside of deals inked by UMG/Sony/Warner/Virgin/The Orchard/AWAL/ADA/Merlin.
- This non-major/Merlin cohort includes DistroKid, Empire, and Believe/TuneCore, plus BMG, which began distributing its catalog to Spotify directly in 2023. It also includes large Merlin members who choose to license Spotify directly, rather than via Merlin’s opt-in collective agreements.
- To reiterate: This is a measurement of streaming volume market share; it’s therefore unaffected by any changes to Spotify’s royalty models (including the so-called ‘artist-centric’ royalty frameworks).
With that all understood, let’s dig in.
From 2017 to 2024, the majors-plus-Merlin cohort saw their combined annual volume market share of music plays on Spotify consistently decline, from 87% in 2017 all the way down to 71% in 2024 – a 1,600 basis point decline.
During the same period (2017-2024), recorded music companies not represented by the majors or Merlin on Spotify saw their combined market share grow substantially, from 13% in 2017 to 29% in 2024.
In 2025, according to Spotify’s new 20-F annual report, the majors-plus-Merlin cohort gained a point of market share. Its repertoire accounted for 72% of all global music plays, while non-major or Merlin companies accounted for 28%.
This was the first time in Spotify’s history as a public company that majors-plus-Merlin have grown their market share YoY.
Factors worth considering in this story include the high-streaming clients represented by Merlin and/or the indie arms of the major music companies. Not least The Orchard, which distributed the biggest album on Spotify globally last year – Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.
Meanwhile, the major music companies represented all ten of the biggest albums on Spotify last year, including the K-pop Demon Hunters soundtrack (via UMG’s Republic Records) at No.2, Hit Me Hard And Soft by Billie Eilish (via UMG’s Interscope) at No.3, SZA’s SOS LANA edition (via Sony’s RCA) at No.4, and Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N Sweet (via Island/UMG) at No.5.
The majors also represented all of the Top 10 songs on Spotify globally in 2025 – unlike in 2024, when No.4 (Gata Only) was distributed by UnitedMasters.
The major labels’ global dominance of the superstar market, however, is something we’ve long been accustomed to.
Turn this story around, and there’s perhaps a bigger narrative at play.
One of the factors in the decline of the majors’ Spotify market share over the past decade has been the collective streaming growth pulled in by the voluminous so-called ‘middle-class’ of artists – i.e. commercially meaningful acts operating way below the global Top 10 (and indeed, the Top 100) lists of each year.
Much of this ‘middle-class’ artist growth has taken place outside the walls of UMG, Sony, and Warner. So have the ‘big three’, particularly via their indie arms, now begun making more significant headway into this part of the market?
Another potential factor in 2025’s numbers might be Merlin expanding its member base across regions worldwide.
One should also obviously consider the power of M&A: for example, UMG only completed its 100% acquisition of indie stalwart [PIAS] in October 2024, meaning the resultant market share shift from this move wouldn’t fully show up in Spotify’s annual numbers until 2025.
UMG’s biggest indie-sector acquisition move of recent years, of course, hasn’t happened yet: its pending nine-figure acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings.
Save for a likely carve-out of royalty platform Curve, the Universal/Downtown deal is expected to be finally cleared by European regulators any time soon.Music Business Worldwide
