Research firm Luminate’s 2025 mid-year report is here, and it reveals continued double-digit growth for music streaming.
Well, specifically on-demand audio music streaming: the report’s topline figures don’t include YouTube video views, for example, nor do they include not-on-demand audio streams (for example on personal-radio services like Pandora).
Still, growth. According to Luminate the number of global, on-demand audio song streams in the first half of this year reached 2.5tn (trillion). That’s up 10.3% on the same period last year, although it was dragged down a bit by the world’s largest recorded-music market.
The report explains that these streams were up by just 4.6% in the US to $696.6bn. Global growth excluding the US was actually 12.6% in the first six months of 2025.
Another highlight of the report is Luminate’s latest analysis of superfans, although we’ve done a bit of extra work to isolate the different tiers of fans from its chart.
20% of music listeners are just that: they listen to music in some not-that-engaged way. Another 14% are described as ‘casual fans’ who use free streaming services. However, 30% are ‘active fans’ who pay for a streaming service, or who stream for free but still buy physical music.
18% are ‘engaged fans’ – described by Luminate as people who pay for music but also “engage with artists on at least 3 of 13 different activation channels”. Finally, another 18% are classed as superfans: they pay for music and engage with artists on at least five of those channels.
(What are they? Luminate lists them at the end of its report: attending concerts; talking about artists with friends or family; watching livestreams; buying physical music, downloads or merch; posting about artists on social media; interacting with artists on chat forums and networks like Discord and Reddit; signing up for artist newsletters; subscribing to fan clubs; tipping artists in person or virtually; buying virtual merch; and directly funding artists through platforms like Patreon, Venmo and Cash App. So now you know.)
Some other findings that jumped out at us:
- The US is the world’s biggest streaming market by volume with 765bn on-demand audio and video streams in the first half of this year. But the next three biggest countries are India (235.5bn), Mexico (226bn) and Brazil (195.4bn). That’s 656.9bn streams between these three high-potential markets, collectively on their way to matching the US.
- Some interesting nuance around AI music. One in three US music listeners are “somewhat” or “very” comfortable with GenAI technologies being used to create song instrumentals, but 44% are somewhat or very uncomfortable with their use for new, original songs performed by an AI voice.
- The latest on ‘current’ (frontline) versus ‘catalogue’ music – defined in this case as tracks at least 18 months old. In the US, the number of streams for current tracks declined by 3.3% to 168.5bn in the first half of this year. This means their share of overall streams is falling even faster (given the rise in total streams – which is clearly driven by catalogue.)
- Music fans on Discord are 200% more likely to tip artists than the average US music listener. Twitch users are 150% more likely.
- Gaming platforms generated 197.7m ‘interactive on-demand streams’ between 4 April and 3 July this year – it’s a new metric being tracked by Luminate.
- Frustration over high prices is the number one barrier to buying festival tickets in the US, UK, Italy, Germany and France according to Luminate’s research, although concerns about this are declining in all of those bar the UK.
- Brazil has overtaken Sweden in Luminate’s music ‘export power rankings’. They’re in ninth and tenth places respectively. The US, UK, Canada, South Korea and Germany are the top five countries in that order. Props to Bad Bunny and his peers: their success makes Puerto Rico seventh in Luminate’s chart, between France and Australia.
