Nielsen’s Music Report reveals Americans streamed a record of more than 900 billion songs in 2018.
2018 has been the biggest year for music streaming.
According to Nielsen’s 2018 Year-End Music Report, Americans streamed a record of more than 900 billion songs during the past 12 months.
During that period, the number of on-demand audio streams grew by 49%, closing in at 611 billion, allowing subscription-based services such as Spotify and Apple Music to grow increasingly among music lovers in the U.S., sparking an intense competition for market dominance in the future, one like Apple and Android hold over the smartphone preference.
The index also reveals that since 2013, the number of songs streamed over the internet has increased more than eightfold, clearly replacing CDs and downloads as the number one way of music consumption.
Growing subscribers
As trends continue to shift, streaming, and both ad-supported and subscription-based now account for 65% of all music revenues inside the U.S.
A shift in music streaming is also seen through the information presented by Nielsen, as more people are relying on paid audio streaming services instead of free video streaming services such as YouTube to listen to music.
Additional information from Midia Research showed that in the first half of 2018 alone, music streaming rose a considerable 16% to 229.5 million subscribers after closing 2017 with 198.6 million subscribers.
We are passionate about music
Consumers embrace music at all points of the day, as 17.8 hours are spent listening to music each week globally.
Click here to find this and other key findings of IFPI’s latest Music Consumer Insight Report.
