The U.S. crossed the 100 million paid subscriber mark for music streaming services for the first time ever last year, as per a new report by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The subscriber number was up from 96.8 million in 2023, with year-on-year growth of roughly 3%. RIAA’s report said that these numbers discount limited tier services — which have device access restrictions and catalog availability limits — and count multi-user subscriptions (such as family plans) as one.
Image Credits:RIAA
According to data from Digital Music News, Spotify dominates the U.S. market with a 36% market share, followed by Apple Music with 30.7%. Spotify has 55 million paid subscribers in the country, according to a report from Bloomberg published in January — unlike the RIAA metrics, Spotify likely breaks down multi-user subscriptions.
Revenue from streaming represented a massive chunk of total music revenue — 84% in 2024. The $14.9 billion revenue from streaming came from paid subscriptions, ad-supported services, digital and customized radio, social media platforms, and digital fitness apps. The next big driver in music revenue was physical copies of sales, representing 11% of total revenue.
The report noted that revenues from paid subscriptions jumped 5% year-on-year at $11.7 billion, which counts for 79% of overall streaming revenues.
Image Credits:RIAA
In the last few years, all services, including Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, have hiked the prices of their subscriptions. That also could be a factor contributing to rising revenue through paid subscriptions.
Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web. You can reach out to him at im[at]ivanmehta[dot]com
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