Reports: Apple Music

Browse all of our reports, featuring our analysts' expert insights and analysis of audience segmentation, emerging trends and technologies, value chains, market shares, predictions and more – backed by our proprietary survey data and bespoke models & forecasts. Become a subscriber to get new ones every month, or just pick one to get started.

Cover image for Streaming strongholds

Streaming strongholds
High-potential markets for global music players

Perry Gresham

11 Aug 2025

ARPU Labels Streaming

While the balance of music streamers continues to tip towards global south markets, their smaller ARPU rates limit their revenues. Meanwhile, periodic price-rises and the advent of supremium will reinforce the contributions from the West. This report highlights streaming strongholds, those markets which, underscored by high music engagement and his...

Cover image for Music consumer behaviour Q1 2025

Music consumer behaviour Q1 2025
Mixed signals

Mark Mulligan

17 Jul 2025

Consumer behaviour Streaming France

This report presents MIDiA Research consumer data for music. Data covered includes weekly active users, streaming music behaviour, non-streaming behaviour, fandom activity, and audio consumption. All data is from MIDiA’s Q1 2025 survey, with data for US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Poland, Spain, Colombia, Japan, n = 9,023.

Cover image for Breaking saturation

Breaking saturation
Music streaming pricing strategy

Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

8 Apr 2025

Labels Subscriptions Streaming

Nearly two decades into the streaming era, established subscription markets like the US are approaching saturation. While growth pockets for standard subscriptions remain, the next stage is about raising average revenue per user through both price increases and user segmentation.

Music streaming consumer profile Q4 2024
Stabilisation and fandom slowdown

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

26 Feb 2025

Willingness to pay Music consumers Streaming

Consumer music behaviours are both stabilising and showing signs of coming change. Change that could be challenging for all music business stakeholders, especially with regards to fandom monetisation. This report presents data-focused visuals and impactful analysis of trends and anomalies that will inform your understanding of what is happening to ...

Cover image for Global South rising

Global South rising
Streaming audiences in China, Turkey, and South Africa

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Nov 2024

Spotify YouTube Deezer

It is increasingly clear that the future of the global music streaming business relies heavily on the Global South markets, which include Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of World. Most subscription growth is coming from these regions, which will collectively dominate the global music subscriber base by 2031, according to MIDiA’s global ...

Cover image for Songwriters take the stage

Songwriters take the stage
A new playbook for a new era

Tatiana Cirisano and Fernanda Balzaretti

31 Jul 2024

Streaming Spotify music industry

The streaming era upended the already-fraught business of being a songwriter, pushing songwriters to secure new revenue streams and better deal terms. While the recorded music industry has responded to similar shifts with a flourishing artist services market, the same is not true for songwriters.

Cover image for The state and future of music fandom

The state and future of music fandom
Unleashing fan creativity

Tatiana Cirisano

21 Aug 2023

Spotify YouTube SoundCloud

Streaming is buckling under the weight of new music being released every day, listenership is fragmenting, and artificial intelligence is poised to intensify these challenges. The music industry’s next era of growth lies in monetising fandom, not consumption.

Cover image for Web 3.0 is here

Web 3.0 is here
Navigating the new culture of digital entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

2 May 2023

Spotify YouTube Netflix

AI has already hit entertainment at the industry level – and the impacts on audience culture will not be far behind. A variety of AI tools are now readily available on ‘fremium’ tiers at a consumer level. Companies may be looking towards what the new world of web 3.

Cover image for US millennial snapshot

US millennial snapshot
A looming generational blind spot

Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

3 Apr 2023

Spotify YouTube Deezer

In the US, 25-34-year-olds are the music industry’s most valuable segment. Yet their relationship with streaming is tenuous. Streaming is not meeting these consumers’ need for a more social, less algorithm-driven experience. What is more, they appear most likely to give their subscriptions up.

Cover image for Nightlife in the new normal

Nightlife in the new normal
Remote work shifts the entertainment balance

Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

4 Jan 2023

Apple TV Netflix Twitter

Coronavirus pandemic work patterns are now ingrained in the United States, where 42% of consumers work from home and a fifth are hybrid workers. In the ‘new normal’, home workers spend less time on both digital and in-person entertainment compared to those who commute.

Cover image for Closing the background gap

Closing the background gap
Focused versus background audio listening

Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

30 Nov 2022

Spotify Radio YouTube

The rise of attention inflation means that consumers are maximising their limited time by multitasking between various formats, spurring a rise in background consumption. This creates a “new” space for platforms to compete for consumers’ time. Among entertainment formats, audio is best placed to conquer background listening, but music streami...

Cover image for DSP user profiles

DSP user profiles
Small is beautiful

Mark Mulligan

29 Nov 2022

Spotify YouTube Deezer

With streaming music now in its mature growth stage in most leading music markets, differentiation will be key to unlocking further growth pockets. While this will likely require innovation in both product and licensing, there are already clear signs that the streaming services are developing userbases with distinct and varied behaviours and charac...

Cover image for Streaming’s next growth phase

Streaming’s next growth phase
The necessity of differentiation

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Oct 2022

Apple Spotify YouTube

DSPs have long been able to grow their subscriber bases despite all offering essentially the same experience. Yet the freemium model is reaching a saturation point, putting slow but steady pressure on DSPs to find new ways to grow subscribers and revenue.

Cover image for Audio consumption

Audio consumption
The entertainment aficionado opportunity

Annie Langston

4 May 2022

Spotify Amazon Google

Streaming platforms are continuing their investment in podcasting despite relatively slow adoption from listeners. Identifying enthusiastic consumer segments will be crucial to accelerating audience growth. Entertainment aficionados (i.e., those who spend more than the average time and money on specific entertainment formats) in music, games, and v...

Cover image for Music market subscriber shares 2021

Music market subscriber shares 2021
Growth is not letting up yet

Mark Mulligan

22 Dec 2021

Subscriptions Streaming Music Subscriptions

This report presents key figures from MIDiA’s global music subscriber market shares model. The full dataset is published alongside this report, with quarterly data (from Q4 2015 to Q1 2021) and annual label trade revenue (from FY 2015 to FY 2020) for more than 20 streaming services across 34 different markets.

Cover image for Ad strategy in a digital-first environment

Ad strategy in a digital-first environment
Rethinking acceptance, tolerance and effectiveness

Hanna Kahlert

3 Jun 2021

Spotify YouTube SoundCloud

Digital-first behaviours and the proliferation of choice have caused underlying changes to how consumers perceive and respond to brands. Brand loyalty has been replaced by content fandom. Frictionless service-switching and overlapping subscription now clashes with high-value content moving between platforms in short time frames and across differing...

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Sports audiences
The Gen Z opportunity

Alistair Taylor

8 Feb 2021

Apple Apple Spotify

Digital natives are more likely to consume non-live sports than older, traditional sports fans, which presents rights holders and broadcasters with untapped potential for monetisation by harnessing and actioning this insight. While the most valuable sports audience currently remains among pay-TV subscribers, planning for meaningful non-broadcast re...

Cover image for Cultural Trends in 2021

Cultural Trends in 2021
Navigating a New Normal

Hanna Kahlert

10 Dec 2020

Apple Apple Spotify

Behaviours under coronavirus-driven lockdowns accelerated underlying digital consumption trends. Remote working and ongoing restrictions mean streaming behaviour is up across formats and demographics at the same time that some traditional entertainment formats effectively ceased.

Cover image for Podcasts Q2 2020

Podcasts Q2 2020
Spotify Takes an Early Lead

Mark Mulligan

9 Oct 2020

US UK France

Podcasts have become the next battle front for audio. Spotify’s ambitious content and product strategy have enabled it to become an early leader, but the podcast market is still in its infancy, with adoption far lower than radio or streaming music. Podcasts have greater long-term market potential than music streaming but with many divergent objec...

Cover image for Music Subscriber Market Shares 4.0

Music Subscriber Market Shares 4.0
Subscriptions Decouple from Revenue

Mark Mulligan

18 Sep 2020

Subscriptions Streaming Music Subscriptions

This report presents key figures from MIDiA’s global music subscriber market shares model. The full dataset is published alongside this report with quarterly data from Q4 2015 to Q1 2020 and annual label trade revenue from full year 2015 to full year 2019 for 27 streaming services across 34 different markets.

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