In January Spotify revealed it paid $10 billion in royalties to artists in 2024 alone, and at the moment, the corporate shed extra gentle on the info.
The yearly payouts to the music business have elevated tenfold since 2014, with over 12,500 artists producing over $100,000 in royalties final 12 months.
Spotify mentioned that rather a lot has modified up to now decade. The worldwide recorded music revenues from streaming in 2014 had been $13 billion, $1B of which was contributed by the Swedish firm. Since then, income has greater than doubled to $28 billion in 2023, with over 500 million paying listeners throughout all music platforms.
With that in thoughts, there are over 200 artists who’ve handed the brink of $5 million. Again in 2017, there was just one. The $1 million barrier was handed by 1,500 artists.
Spotify has paid $4.5 billion to publishing rights holders over the previous two years. This consists of songwriters, publishers, PROs (performing rights organizations, a.okay.a. artists’ unions), and different accumulating societies.
Out of the 1,500 artists that noticed the seven-digit sum in USD, 80% of them didn’t have a track attain the Spotify World Day by day Prime 50 chart – probably the most widespread playlists on the platform. They don’t seem to be simply legacy artists, it consists of actively touring musicians with precise ticketed occasions in 2024.
Spotify identified one other attention-grabbing pattern: the broader curiosity in multilingual music. Again in 2017, solely songs in English and Spanish surpassed $100 million in royalties. In 2024, there have been eight languages – English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, French, Portuguese, and German.
The edge of $1 million in royalties was surpassed by music in 17 languages, whereas the $100,000 mark was reached by artists in 50 languages.
Spotify confirmed how a lot one stream (enjoying one track) prices. 1 million streams equal $10,000, which is USD 0.01, or 1 American cent. Nonetheless, this is not a flat price, and the payout relies on streamshare as a result of, as the corporate defined, a set per-stream price shouldn’t be viable as a result of listeners do not pay per track they hearken to.
Almost 1 / 4 of world recorded music income comes from Spotify at the moment, up from 15% in 2017. The whole quantity consists of bodily gross sales, touring, merch, sync, and different sources, highlighting the important thing place of Spotify within the business.
