Global recorded music revenues rose to $36.2 billion in 2024, marking a 6.5% increase year-on-year, according to MIDiA Research.
The Recorded Music Market Shares 2024 report from MIDiA comes ahead of the IFPI numbers next week. If excluding expanded rights (such as income from merch, sponsorship, live and branding), the total was $32.1 billion.
While the latest numbers reflect continued market expansion, the growth rate slowed compared to the 9.7% increase in 2023. The see-saw effect has seen growth boom in 2021 and slow in 2022, with the pattern repeating in 2023 and 2024.
Non-major labels continue to expand market share
Non-major labels increased market share for the third consecutive year, with revenues climbing 8.2% to $10.7bn. As a result, they increased market share from 29.2% in 2023 to 29.7% in 2024.
Non-major labels were especially successful in streaming, where their revenues rose 8.4% to $5.4bn, outpacing the 5.4% growth posted by major labels. They also saw substantial growth in expanded rights, surging to $1.6bn, a segment where Asian labels played a crucial role. Four leading Asian labels alone accounted for 65.5% of that total.
While that points to fandom-driven models and broader rights ownership within artist rosters, physical sales remained a challenge for non-majors, with revenues declining 6.4%, compared to a 3.6% dip for major labels.
Streaming revenue growth slows sharply
Streaming still dominates revenues but its impact is lessening. For the first time, streaming’s share of total recorded music did not increase in 2024 – surprisingly, streaming growth was just below market growth.
Streaming revenue grew by a more modest 6.2% in 2024 compared to 10.3% in 2023. 2024 streaming revenues were $22.2 billion, representing 61.3% (61.5% in 2023) of all revenues (69.1% excluding expanded rights). The contribution of streaming to overall industry growth also fell to 58.5%, down from 64.6% in 2023.
Despite recent price increases, streaming now appears to be suffering a deceleration in its revenue growth rate. The slowdown was evident in the UK market with the BPi reporting streaming market growth of 5.7% in 2024 – down from 8.4% in the prior year.
Industry attention is turning to super-premium tiers and new monetisation models to refuel streaming growth.
The streaming slowdown, coupled with another down year for physical, has emphasised a steadily increasing amount of market volatility
Mark Mulligan
Self-releasing artists, distributing via platforms such as Amuse, CD Baby, DistroKid and TuneCore, saw revenues of $2.0 billion in 2024.
This Artists Direct sector has faced various brakes on growth, including the arrival of minimum stream earning thresholds (the artist-centric model) as well as fraud fine systems applied by DSPs. Nevertheless, revenues grew slightly faster in 2024 than in 2023, up 4.7% compared to 4.5% in 2023.
The number of artists in this segment grew more than three and half times faster than revenues, to reach 8.2 million.
Major labels’ market share
In terms of market share dynamics, only Sony Music Group and non-major labels gained share in 2024, according to MIDiA.
Universal Music Group (UMG) retains the largest market share with revenues of $10.5 billion but lost about a percentage point of share in 2024.
Sony Music Group (SMG) emerged as the fastest-growing major label for the second consecutive year, increasing revenues by 10.2% to grow market share by 0.7 percentage points 21.7%. SMG was also the fastest growing major label in the first half of the decade, growing by a total of 73.9% between 2020 and 2024.
“With so much uncertainty in the global economy, 6.5% annual revenue growth is an achievement in itself,” said Mark Mulligan, managing director and senior music analyst at MIDiA Research. “Nonetheless, the streaming slowdown, coupled with another down year for physical, has emphasised a steadily increasing amount of market volatility. Which makes the fast growing expanded rights segment so important for the industry. Not only does it do the crucial job of monetising fandom, it is fast becoming a hedge against stodgy streaming growth and the yo-yoing physical sector.”
He added: “One crucial element to keep an eye on is the long tail of independent artists. Measures like minimum earnings thresholds are taking a toll on Artists Direct revenue, and helping major labels throw speed bumps in the ongoing erosion of their market share. Yet it is doing nothing to halt the growth of releasing artists who compete for ears.”
MIDiA’s numbers differ slightly from IFPI as they include expanded rights revenues, as well the masters side of production libraries. They do not restate historical figures to constant exchange rates.
In addition, MIDiA scaled down some of the numbers slightly to reflect some previous double counting of independent label revenue distributed by other independent labels.
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