“83% of US music revenue in 2020 is streaming”

The music market has been shifting from almost physical media to streaming over the past few years. In 2020, music sales, announced by the U.S. RIAA, reached $12.2 billion, an increase of 9.2% from the previous year, perhaps due to the increase in the number of people listening to music at home due to Corona 19. Among them, the revenue of music streaming companies such as Spotify and Apple Music rose 14.6% to $7 billion. It has continued to lead the sales of physical media such as CDs and downloads since 2018.

The number of subscribers per year increased from 60.4 million in 2019 to 75.5 million in 2020, the largest increase in subscriber growth. In addition, Facebook, which has signed a new comprehensive license agreement, seems to have supported the increase in revenue.

In contrast to streaming, real media recorded $483 million in sales for CDs in 2020, down 23%. On the other hand, analog records grew 29%, hitting $66 million, making it a more profitable media than CD. Thanks to strong analog record sales, total media sales decreased by 0.5%.

The increase in music streaming revenue should be achieved for the entire music industry, but there are also points on diversifying revenue. In the case of physical media and download sales, a certain percentage of revenue is distributed to artists, but in the case of streaming, big artists tend to generate profits, but distribution can be difficult for artists with few views. It may be necessary to seek a fairer business model and move on to improve bias. Related information can be found here.