Just 3 music services dominate 90% of the U.S. market
New data reveals who has the monopoly for music in the attention economy and that only three platforms make up nearly all U.S. listeners.
Music streaming is huge. Today, over 600 million people use music streaming services worldwide and they have driven huge growth for the global music industry. The United States represents the world’s leading country for music streaming listeners – but what are they using?
A new report from Digital Music News has revealed the “big three” of paid music streaming services. In their 2024 Streaming Music Subscriber Market Share database, they reveal that Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music claim more than 90% of the market share for paid music streaming services in the U.S., or “the big three”.
Spotify is unsurprisingly on top, making up 36% of the paid audience in the U.S.. Apple Music follows closely behind with 30.7% of the market with Amazon Music then grabbing the majority of the remaining paying listeners at 23.8%. This equates 90.5% of the U.S.’s paying listeners using just three services.
In a notable fourth place, YouTube Music emerges with 6.8% of the market share. Despite YouTube’s huge reach, their paid music service hasn’t caught up in the music streaming arena. Accounting for YouTube Music’s share, that leaves just 2.7% of the market encapsulating services like Pandora, TIDAL, and SoundCloud.
YouTube’s small percentage still amounts to 9.25 million subscribers. Spotify have a considerable lead with 49.05 million. The RIAA’s figures for 2023 showed an average of 96.8 million Americans were subscribed to on-demand music streaming services. However, Digital Music News’ data suggests there are a fair few more than that, with 123.37 million attributed to the “big three” alone.
Matthew Bass, the RIAA’s president also reckons that over 100 million people in the U.S. now have access to a subscription music streaming service. Speaking on growth in 2024, Bass told Music Ally: “[Music] is positioned to be another strong year for recorded music in the U.S., with paid subscriptions contributing the most to growth and labels continuing [to] find new ways to reach artists’ fans.”