Reports: Apple Music

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Breaking saturation
Music streaming pricing strategy

Cover image for Breaking saturation

Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

April 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

February 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 today’s music consumer, why it is happening, and where these trends are heading.

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

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Tatiana Cirisano

November 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 music forecasts.

Songwriters take the stage
A new playbook for a new era

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Tatiana Cirisano and Fernanda Balzaretti

July 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.

The state and future of music fandom
Unleashing fan creativity

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Tatiana Cirisano

August 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.

Web 3.0 is here
Navigating the new culture of digital entertainment

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Hanna Kahlert

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.

US millennial snapshot
A looming generational blind spot

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Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

April 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.

Nightlife in the new normal
Remote work shifts the entertainment balance

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Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

January 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.

Closing the background gap
Focused versus background audio listening

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Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

November 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 streaming is more easily relegated to the background than podcasts.

DSP user profiles
Small is beautiful

Cover image for DSP user profiles

Mark Mulligan

November 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 characteristics.

Streaming’s next growth phase
The necessity of differentiation

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Tatiana Cirisano

October 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.

Audio consumption
The entertainment aficionado opportunity

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Annie Langston

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 video streaming show the signs of being fit for such a market.

Music market subscriber shares 2021
Growth is not letting up yet

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Mark Mulligan

December 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.

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

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Hanna Kahlert

June 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 geographies.

Sports audiences
The Gen Z opportunity

Cover image for Sports audiences

Alistair Taylor

February 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 revenues through digital-native engagement is now crucial for pandemic mitigation, as well as addressing the needs of the underserved fans of the future.

Sports audiences
The Gen Z opportunity

Cover image for Sports audiences

Alistair Taylor

February 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 revenues through digital-native engagement is now crucial for pandemic mitigation, as well as addressing the needs of the underserved fans of the future.

Cultural Trends in 2021
Navigating a New Normal

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Hanna Kahlert

December 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.

Cultural Trends in 2021
Navigating a New Normal

Cover image for Cultural Trends in 2021

Hanna Kahlert

December 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.

Podcasts Q2 2020
Spotify Takes an Early Lead

Cover image for Podcasts Q2 2020

Mark Mulligan

October 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 objectives among key players, the interplay of product and content strategy will delineate the competitive marketplace.

Podcasts Q2 2020
Spotify Takes an Early Lead

Cover image for Podcasts Q2 2020

Mark Mulligan

October 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 objectives among key players, the interplay of product and content strategy will delineate the competitive marketplace.

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