RIAA reports record music revenues for 2024 so far
Image credit: Vitaly Taranov
Streaming continues to drive growth for the music industry with a little help from vinyl, but growth is a different story.
The U.S. recorded music market has reached record levels in the first half of 2024. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have revealed figures for 2024 so far and whilst things are looking good, the story is a complicated one.
The total U.S. recorded music industry reached a total of $8.65 billion for H1 2024, the highest ever for a year’s first half. So, you may be surprised to learn that revenue growth is dramatically slower than that of recent years.
To reach its record levels, music revenue grew 3.9% year-on-year in the U.S. for H1. For comparison, the last two years saw 9% and 8.8% growth for the same period. The numbers get even more dramatic for the first half of 2021, when lockdowns drove consumers to stream music and revenues rose 27%.
An area that did see a surprising leap in growth is the continuing resurgence of vinyl. Vinyl record sales totalled 24.3 million units across the U.S. in the first half of 2024. That represents growth of 10.7% with a total value of a whopping $739.9 million, a 17% increase in value for the period.
CDs are still on a surprising comeback but with far more modest growth of just 0.3%. However, streaming remains the leader of music revenues the world over. Total streaming revenue grew 3.8% to $7.3 billion, making up 84.1% of the total revenue.
Paid subscription revenues surpassed $5 billion, growing faster than overall streaming revenue with 5.1% increases on the first half of 2023. The average number of subscribers reached an almost satisfying 100 million, just 1 million too few.
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