India’s love of digital music puts them on track to overtake the USA as the world’s biggest music streaming market.

In recent years, the introduction of music streaming services to India has seen music consumption in the country blow up. Local music streaming services like JioSaavn and Gaana have over 200 million subscribers, whilst other big players like Spotify and YouTube Music have a massive userbase in the region.

Last year, music streaming saw fantastic growth around the world. Over 7 trillion songs were streamed globally in 2023, resulting in the most music listened to in a year ever. However, India stood out amongst the global growth.

In terms of year-on-year growth in on-demand audio and video song streams, India was by and far the leader. According to the data from Luminate’s 2023 year-end report, the country streamed 463.7 billion more songs than in 2022. The United States came second, trailing behind with 184 billion new song streams.

Data from Luminate’s 2023 year-end report

To put this level of new streams into perspective, India has shot up the streaming charts in recent years and is now the second country in the world by overall streaming volume. Last year, India streamed 1.037 trillion total songs. You see that’s just over 80% growth in 2023.

The United States is still at the top as of last year, with 1.454 trillion total streams. If India’s streaming growth continues on trend then 2024 could well be the year that India overtakes the US to become the most dominant music streaming market in the world.

The same report showed that the market share of Hindi-language within the world’s Top 10,000 streaming tracks has grown. In 2021, Hindi-language music made up just 3.8% of the Top 10,000 on-demand streaming tracks. That percentage grew to 7.8% for 2023.

As music streaming proliferates around the world it is moving away from an English-language dominance. Firstly, new markets are taking up music streaming services like never before. Secondly, the global aspect of music streaming offers all cultures the chance to shine with global audiences – just look at the popularity of South Korean music.

English-language music had a whopping 62.1% share of the Top 10,000 global tracks streamed in 2022. That shrunk to 54.9% in 2023. Whilst still a massive amount, it’s clear that there is a trend showing a shift of popularity towards global music and away with English-language music’s dominance.