Reports: 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 Pandora

Pandora
Mapping Its Place in the US Streaming Market

Mark Mulligan

7 Sep 2018

Streaming Streaming Music Apple

Pandora is the granddaddy of streaming music, clocking 10 million active users before Spotify had even gone into public beta. It remains the most widely used audio streaming service in the US, but is no longer the golden child of the space. Despite having been long positioned as the long-term future of radio, investors have become increasingly conc...

Cover image for Streaming Services Market Shares 2.0

Streaming Services Market Shares 2.0

Mark Mulligan

30 Aug 2018

Subscriptions Subscriptions Streaming

This report includes the key findings of MIDiA’s Global Music Subscriber Market Share Model in which we present the subscribers, revenues and market shares of streaming services in more than 20 different countries. This report contains charts and analysis for 11 countries including consumer survey data, while the complete excel model is posted al...

Cover image for State of the YouTube Music Economy 2.0

State of the YouTube Music Economy 2.0
A Turning Point for All Parties

Mark Mulligan

14 Aug 2018

Streaming Streaming Music Spotify

This report is now into its second edition, updating the most comprehensive YouTube music dataset ever compiled in order to present all sides of the argument in an objective and impartial manner. The report provides an exhaustive view of the market for revenues, ad rates, stream rates, users, streams and subscribers.

Cover image for Spotify Q2 2018 Earnings

Spotify Q2 2018 Earnings
More Needed from Emerging Markets and Ad Supported

Mark Mulligan

30 Jul 2018

Subscriptions Streaming Streaming Music

Spotify’s Q2 2018 earnings show continued solid progress across most of its performance metrics. However, investor scrutiny is intensifying, especially with the growing subscriber arms race in the US becoming — albeit incorrectly — perceived as a litmus test for global success.

Cover image for Emerging Music Markets

Emerging Music Markets
Streaming’s Third Wave

Mark Mulligan

9 Jul 2018

Streaming Streaming Music Music Subscriptions

With streaming growth set to slow in mature western markets by 2019, the next wave of fast growth will come from a mixture of mid-tier markets such as Mexico, Brazil, Japan and Germany. Beyond that, the streaming market will need to look towards emerging markets for growth.

Cover image for The Outlook for Music Catalogue

The Outlook for Music Catalogue
Streaming Changes Everything

Mark Mulligan and Zach Fuller

14 Jun 2018

Spotify Amazon Napster

Catalogue was a real money spinner for the music industry throughout the sales era. First it underpinned the CD boom (convincing music fans to re-purchase old albums they already owned on prior formats). Then, through the emergence of the digital economy, it provided a stable respite from the volatility of declining overall revenues in the wake of ...

Cover image for Global Music Distribution

Global Music Distribution
A Buyer’s Market

Mark Mulligan

25 May 2018

Labels Spotify Record labels

The internet was supposed to be the great leveller, enabling smaller artists and labels to reach global audiences in a way not previously possible. But, it turns out that getting music to these global fan bases is not quite so straightforward. Smaller labels simply do not have the resources to enable them to distribute music across all territories.

Cover image for Spotify Q1 2018 Earnings

Spotify Q1 2018 Earnings
Steady Course But Is It Enough?

Mark Mulligan

7 May 2018

Subscriptions Streaming Streaming Music

On the 2 May 2018 Spotify released its first quarterly earnings. The results fundamentally represent a continuation of the figures presented in Spotify’s F1 filing and show strong results across most performance metrics. Nonetheless, investors were not satisfied (apparently spooked by growing losses), resulting in a dip in Spotify’s stock price.

Cover image for Recorded Music Market 2017

Recorded Music Market 2017
Streaming Accelerating Growth

Mark Mulligan

11 Apr 2018

music sales Streaming Streaming Music

Recorded music revenues are booming and the distribution end of the value chain is both vibrant and competitive. This has not been the case for many, many years. Streaming is on course to become the main revenue source, while the slowdown in legacy format decline is enabling that growth to lift the overall market at a greater rate.

Cover image for Making and Marketing an Artist

Making and Marketing an Artist
Streaming Rewrites the Rules, Again

Mark Mulligan

4 Apr 2018

Labels Streaming Streaming Music

Marketing is one of the core competencies of record labels. The rise of the internet and social media transformed label marketing strategies. Now streaming is turning everything upside down again. The new challenge this time round is that streaming is both a marketing tool and a revenue source.

Cover image for Spotify by the Numbers

Spotify by the Numbers
Trials, Churn and Margin

Mark Mulligan

26 Mar 2018

Apple Apple Spotify

This report presents analysis of Spotify’s key performance metrics as presented in the F1 filing in advance of its direct listing. The report focuses on business performance metrics, such as user acquisition and retention, user engagement and user spend.

Cover image for Most Streamed Versus All Time Sellers

Most Streamed Versus All Time Sellers
The Internationalisation Myth

Zach Fuller

26 Feb 2018

Apple Spotify Deezer

As the music industry becomes a streaming industry in all but name, Spotify’s 100 most streamed tracks provide a window into how the overall industry has changed since the advent of access over ownership. Although arguably just a snapshot of an era, a comparison between the two reveals recent trends within music pertaining to genre popularity and...

Cover image for Playlisting and the Demographic Destiny of Streaming

Playlisting and the Demographic Destiny of Streaming

Zach Fuller

29 Jan 2018

Streaming Spotify YouTube

With playlists representing streaming’s lingua franca, the dramatic shifts in consumption they are powering are rewriting the rule books on music marketing, music formats and revenue generation, all in one swoop. Though the rate of change is partially offset by the grandfathering of the download format and, in certain cases, the resistance of phy...

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Awakening
The Music Industry in the Digital Age

Mark Mulligan

1 Jan 2018

music industry digital age

In June 1999 a software programme developed by a college dropout changed the music industry forever. It triggered a transformation that threw decades’ worth of accepted wisdom out of the window and sent the recorded music industry into what at times appeared to be a death spiral.

Cover image for Streaming Peaks

Streaming Peaks
What Playlist And Binge-Watching Trends Signify For Streaming

Mark Mulligan

21 Dec 2017

Streaming Streaming Music YouTube

Streaming is transforming music and video consumption, creating new business models and behaviours. 2017 was a strong year for both sectors but growth is not uniformly distributed. Video subscriptions are set to see much wider adoption than music subscriptions and across both sectors, leading behaviours are slowing.

Cover image for MIDiA Research Music Market Metrics

MIDiA Research Music Market Metrics

Mark Mulligan

20 Dec 2017

Streaming streaming market shares Music Metrics

In the Excel spreadsheet published here we have brought together all of MIDiA’s main music datasets into one place for convenient access and reference. The document includes more than 20 country pages, with multiple datasets and charts. Datasets included:...

Cover image for Quarterly Digital Content Trends: Q3 2017

Quarterly Digital Content Trends: Q3 2017

Mark Mulligan

11 Dec 2017

Streaming Streaming Music US

In this report, we present highlights of content trends from MIDiA’s Quarterly Brand Tracker. The survey is fielded in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. This report explores how consumer behaviour evolved between Q4 2016 and Q3 2017 across music, video, games and social.

Cover image for MIDiA Research Predictions 2018

MIDiA Research Predictions 2018
Post-Peak Economics

Karol Severin, Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan and Zach Fuller

4 Dec 2017

Apple Spotify Amazon

In this report MIDiA Research analysts present their predictions for what will be the big trends in digital media and tech across music, video, media in 2018. Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Apple Music, Candy Crush...

Cover image for Radio Is Streaming’s Next Frontier

Radio Is Streaming’s Next Frontier
How Streaming Will Disrupt Radio Like It Did Retail

Mark Mulligan

21 Nov 2017

Streaming Streaming Music Apple

Streaming’s first achievement was becoming a long-term successor to retail, now it has its sights set on doing the same to radio. Even though the revenue per user is much smaller, the addressable market is far higher. Streaming’s post-radio strategy has the potential to be much more far reaching and impactful than subscriptions have been in ter...

Cover image for State Of The Streaming Nation 2.1 (Mid-Year 2017 Update)

State Of The Streaming Nation 2.1 (Mid-Year 2017 Update)
The Definitive Assessment Of The Global Streaming Music Market

Mark Mulligan

30 Oct 2017

Subscriptions Streaming Streaming Music

2016 was the year that streaming turned the recorded music business into a good news story, with revenue growth so strong that it drove nearly a billion dollars of total growth. Leading streaming services spent the year competing with ever more impressive metric, while playlisting and streaming exclusives became cornerstones of the wider music mark...

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