Music Revenues Climb 10% to $28.6 Billion

Global music sales grew for the ninth consecutive year in 2023, with recorded music revenues increasing in every market and region, and across almost all formats, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) Global Music Report 2024.

Billboard reports total revenues climbed to $28.6 billion, a rise of just over 10% on the previous year, and the second highest growth rate on record after 2021’s 18.5% year-on-year spike.

2023’s total sales figure is the highest level since 1999 — when IFPI first started compiling global music revenues and sales totaled $22.2 billion — on an absolute dollar basis, not accounting for inflation. Piracy and declining physical sales saw the market bottom out at $13 billion in 2014.

Driving last year’s growth was an 11.2% rise in paid streaming subscription revenue, which totaled $14 billion, up from $12.7 billion in 2022, and accounted for almost half (48.9%) of global music sales.

The rise in global paid streaming revenue comes after many of the leading streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music and Deezer, all raised their subscription prices in key territories over the past 12-18 months. For the majority of streaming services, the hikes were their first price rises since launching more than a decade ago.

Despite the rising cost for consumers, the number of music streaming subscribers continues to grow globally, with IFPI reporting that the number of paid subscriptions to streaming services surpassed 500 million for the first time in 2023.

When shared usership and family accounts are considered, there are now more than 667 million users of paid subscription accounts globally, says the London-based organization, up 13% from the 589 million recorded in the previous 12 months.

Total streaming revenues, comprising of paid subscription and advertising-supported tiers, rose 10% to $19.3 billion to make up 67% of worldwide recorded music sales, roughly flat with last year’s share of the market.

Nevertheless, streaming’s year-on-year growth continues to slow as a result of its already high penetration of the global music market. In 2021, total streaming revenues spiked 24% year-on-year. In 2022, the rate of growth had more than halved to 11.5%.