The music industry is probably the most exciting and fascinating in the world. It consists of independent artists to big corporations that earn revenue from producing, creating, directing, and composing new songs, prices, or organizing live concerts. From 2000 to 2014, the music industry had to overcome a huge obstacle called music piracy. But from 2015 to 2019, the industry managed to get back on its feet. In this article, I will take you on a tour of the statistics of the music industry of 2020.
Music Industry Revenue/Followers Statistics
According to Toptal, for over two decades, the global music industry has struggled with growth due to the widespread practice of unsupervised piracy on the internet. Music sales saw a fall of revenues by 40 percent to the lowest revenue of $14.3 billion in 2014 since 1999. However, the tables have turned as the global music industry revenues increased to a staggering $20 billion in 2019.
The 2019 Year-End RIAA Music Revenues Report notes that music revenues in the US alone soared from $2.6 billion in 2008 to $9.7 billion in 2019. It is great to see how music streaming services played a pivotal role in this swift rise contributing to 91% of the US’s total revenues in 2019. Streaming services give the freedom of personalization of music to the user, and as it becomes more convenient gradually, users prefer actually to pay for it. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reports, streaming revenues alone grew at a 42% CAGR (compound annual growth rate, while the amount is only 9% CAGR for the whole recording industry.
Breakthrough: Music Platforms
Streaming services and mobile apps like Spotify, SHAZAM, YouTube are the most popular digital music platforms. Despite streaming being an embryonic idea, such services have already done an outstanding job of battling to keep piracy at bay.
Since its launch in 2008, Spotify was a huge success, with a reported 286 million monthly active users currently. Spotify, which stores over 50 million tracks, holds approximately 36% of the global streaming market to this date.
The company’s yearly revenue of $7.3 billion saw a gross profit of $1.8 billion in 2019. Spotify’s 2019 subscription revenue of $6.61 billion is around 78% of the total revenue generated by streaming services.
YouTube, which has over 2 billion monthly active viewers, produced a total ad revenue of $15 billion and a non-advertising revenue of $750 million in 2019. Here are 3 top rising stars who gained the most monthly listener’s count in Spotify by June 30 this year:
British Indie rocker Beatrice Kristi Laus, aka beabadoobee, gained an impressive total of 30 million monthly listeners by June 30.
German DJ and producer Topic comes at second with a total gain of 21 million by the same time span. His top hit, “Breaking Me,” was a great success setting him up for good momentum of success.
Thirdly comes the 22-year-old rapper, Jack Harlow from Louisville, Kentucky. His hit track “What’s Popping” positioned at No. 2 of the Billboard Hot 100, aiding him to gain a total of 18 million monthly listeners.
Another great source of music videos is YouTube. Many of the artists got their breakthrough on YouTube, so now let’s look at Top 3 YouTube channel views growth.
At number one, we have Trevor Daniel with his 2.8K growth percentage and a subscriber count of over 1.28Million.
At number two, we have BENEE with an impressive growth of 2k percentage. The song “Supalonely,” featuring Gus Dapperton uploaded in 2019, got her that international fame in 2020.
With almost 1.6k growth, we have an Egyptian singer Ramy Sabry at the number 3 spot. In early 2020. Ramy only started with 1.6M views, but it became more than 28M after six months.
Top 3 tracks that had the most SHAZAM count growth
“Some say” by Linnea Södahl but remixed by German Tropical House producer Felix Jaehn with almost 114k growth percentage.
At number 2, we have “Breaking me” by topic with 52.4K percent growth on Shazam
“Moral of the Story” by Ashe stole the number 3 spot with a growth over 38k percentage.
Breakthrough: Social Platforms
Every one, at some point in time, finds themselves searching for music that frequently and randomly pops up in our social media feed. Social media and music are intertwined together, and it is unimaginable to think of each without the other. It leads to promoting and digital marketing of music to the listeners on different platforms. Apart from the streaming services, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are also bridges connecting the listeners to the artists and their music.
TikTok rapidly came into the viewers’ attention out of the blue. It effectively promotes different music as TikTok stars use different tracks in their videos, causing viewers to get hooked to different types of music, encouraging them to explore more. Many artists and their tracks gained immense fame through TikTok. Here are 3 top trending TikTok tracks of this year:
Banana by Conkarah(feat. Shaggy) is a Jamaican song which has been dominating TikTok since its release in August 2019.
Sunday Best by Surfaces gained more than 23 million posts on TikTok as well made its place on the Billboard Hot 100
2002 – Anne-Marie(Shaun Reynolds remix) is the remix of the original song from 2018 gained its popularity once again thanks to TikTok.
Instagram, on the other hand, connects the music consumers with the artists. Users tend to follow the artists whose music has a greater reach. The following are the top 3 artists with the most follower growth within six months:
23-year-old Gabi Martins who went from having 1.1 million followers in January to 8 million followers by June.
Puerto Rican star KEVVO gained a total of 2.1 million followers within the 6 months’ time.
South Korean singer Nara, who went from 226k to having over 1 million followers.
Breakthrough: Overall Popularity
An artist’s overall performance can be reviewed on the basis of the Cross-Platform Performance (CPP), which includes activity on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Instagram, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter. The following is the list of top 3 artists with the most improvements in their CPP rank:
Vocalist and instrumentalist Phoelix had a dramatic ascend in rank across all the platforms.
Anthony Tubbs, saw fair rise in all platforms because of his regular track releases and features.
Noga Erez, an Israeli singer, gained a lot of fame for her song “Dance While You Shoot” securing the 3rd position.
While Taylor Swift, J Balvin, and Shawn Mendes ranked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively in CPP.
The chart metric did an amazing job of introducing the music industry trend in 2020. Check out more about the breakthroughs from Music Industry Trends From H1 2020.
General Music Industry Statistics
What is the biggest music industry in the world?
A study on the top 30 playlists of Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, and Spotify shows that the United States is the highest contributor of artists in the music industry. Artists from different regions of the country have earned themselves places in the highest of the CPP ranks making the country to hold the highest share in the music market. Aside from this, the US alone produces annual revenue of more than $5,916 million from recorded music, record sales, live concerts, ticket sales, and sales of merchandise. Japan comes next with an annual revenue of $2,757 million, followed by Germany, producing $1323 million income through digital and physical record sales.
What do the most listen to a genre of music in 2020?
IFPI’s consumer report from 2018 concluded that pop music is the most popular genre, with 64% of people claiming pop to be their most favorite. To add with, the 2019 study on the top 30 playlists of Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, and Spotify classified the songs into their respective genres. The conclusion once again showed that pop was leading in each playlist of the five platforms making up more than 25% of each of the playlists. Thus, we can deduce that pop music will continue to be the top favorite of music consumers for the third consecutive year. Rock and electronic/house music are also listeners’ favorite. But for the time, pop music takes the crown.
Music Career Statistics
As music consumers, it is very easy to assume that the industry revolves around the artists only blindly. In contrast, the US alone makes a total revenue of $43 billion a year from the music industry, of which only $5 billion or 12% goes to the artists.
Production, distribution, handling record labels, streaming, radio companies, and many other intermediaries lie between artists and listeners. Each of these intermediate points plays equally pivotal roles to add to the total revenue.
When we discussed a music industry career, our first thought is usually about becoming a musician. The industry comprises many different nodes, each playing its part with synchrony with the other.
Top 10 Careers in The Music Business Changes
Most of the music consumers have a constricted idea about how large and branched the music industry actually is. We often only care to acknowledge the front faces of the music business, i.e., the artists and their records, but behind the curtain, there are hundreds of people working to make a label successful. Here are some careers to pursue in the music business.
You can learn more about the top 10 music career in the music industry if you are a music lover.
How Has COVID-19 Impacted the Music Career Industry?
The current pandemic has halted the progress of hundreds of different industries around the world. The music career industry has consequently faced a major blow. While successful musicians did face a huge amount of cut of earnings, many newcomers to the industry genuinely faced career threatening losses. A primary source of earning for such musicians is live shows, maybe in the local fair, or at some club.
However, with social distancing strictly issued, such events were absolutely prohibited for a very long time. Again, crews and backups for famous musicians did not have their primary source of earnings either, as artists often accepted online invitations while physical concerts and tours were canceled.
To tackle the crisis, music groups and streaming giants like Universal Music Group, Spotify, Amazon Music, and many others hosted donations programs to raise funds for those heavily affected by the pandemic. Consumers were also involved as they donated directly to funds of their choice.
The impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic on the music industry
Like it has affected the people involved with music, COVID-19 has also affected the overall industry. Point to be noted, a healthy amount of revenues is still flowing in. The fact should not be surprising at all, given the fact that digital streaming is increasing exponentially. Listeners can easily access music and keep the monetary flow running without breaking the social distancing restrictions.
However, other forms of music consumption suffered serious damage. One of them is live music. Concert shutdowns led to a heavy decline in revenue. For instance, Live Nation, a famous live entertainment company, saw a 98% yearly revenue decline in Q2 2020. Sales and advertisements involved with live events faced a huge blow consequently.
For example, in one of their surveys, the Interactive Advertising Bureau shows that one-fourth of media buyers and brands have halted all sorts of advertising in the first half of this year. This had and will continue to affect many ad-supported music channels until stable recovery of the situation.
In addition, artists are avoiding risk by delaying releases of tracks and albums too. Most of the promotions of albums were done in tours and concerts. So live performance revenue hit a complete rock bottom.
However, a completely new format has emerged in recent events. As an alternative to live shows, artists are directly engaging with fans from their homes with the help of services like Instagram TV, Twitch, Facebook Live, and many others. With this came introducing new monetization methods like subscriptions to artists’ channels, payment for viewing live online shows, and many other exclusive deals. Sponsors are also being involved in such initiatives, and the whole process is eventually benefitting from the royalties and sponsorships.
What is the value of the music industry?
According to Forbes, the music industry managed to generate a solid total of $21.5 billion in 2020 so far despite the current pandemic continuing to inflict major drawbacks. Goldman Sachs predicts that the number will hit $45 billion by 2030. This shows how promising the industry is. With the popularity of streaming still on the rise, the value is expected to be even greater.
According to the World Economic Forum, the music industry’s net worth is around $50 billion. A significant half comes from live shows, ticket sales, advertising, and promotions, while the rest comes from streaming, recorded music, physical sales, and licensing.
What are the current trends in the music industry?
The music industry continues to work meticulously with artists and consumers to present with sophisticated music experience. One of the most recent yet popular trends is the inclusion of artificial intelligence in music creation and music presentation.
A hefty amount of time needs to be invested in music creation. Associating the machine and automating a certain portion of the creation process will give an expanded dimension to the music creating an experience. If the process becomes easier, more number of artists happily welcome the musical opportunity.
When it comes to the consumer’s end, the music industry greatly focuses on user preferences. Different streaming platforms are working on user preferences and improved algorithms to pick different music from other artists according to data collected from users’ activities. The music experience is more flexible than ever.
To conclude, as long as we dream of a bright and colorful world to live in, music will continue to be a primary tool to craft that dream. The huge prospect of this industry is unimaginable to think of. With consumer’s support and inclusion of technology, music can be shaped for the community’s greatest good. I hope the article provided you with the information you are looking for. Thank you for reading.
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