Recorded music market 2022 Reality bites

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20,000 foot view:  Following a spectacular year of growth in 2021, global recorded music revenue growth slowed significantly in 2022, due to the combined impact of global economic headwinds and growth slowdown in mature streaming markets. Context, though, is everything – not many industries can deliver solid growth while the global economy is in turmoil, ad markets are falling, and many emerging tech sectors are in crisis.

Key insights:

• Global recorded music revenues were        billion in 2022, up        compared to        in 2021
• While most formats grew in 2022, streaming and ‘other’ were the only growth segments in 2022, up        and        respectively
• Streaming represented        of all recorded music revenues in 2022, up from        in 2021
• For the third successive year, Sony Music Group (SMG) was the major with fastest growing streaming revenues, up        from 2021, though growing nearly five times slower than in 2021
• Universal Music Group (UMG) added more recorded music revenue        billion) in 2022 than either of the other two majors
• Artists direct grew fastest once again, up        with revenues of        billion 
• Market shares were relatively stable, with UMG leading market share at        down        point, SMG up        points to        and independent labels up        point to       
• The biggest share changes were artists direct (up        points to        and Warner Music Group (down        to       
• While collective major label market share held steady in 2021, it was down        points to        in 2022, due primarily to WMG’s market share decline

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: AWAL, CD Baby, Concord, Copyright Royalty Board, DistroKid, Kobalt, Meta, NetEase Cloud Music, Reservoir Media, Snap, Sony Music Group, The Orchard, TikTok, TuneCore, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, YouTube

Methodological notes:

1. All revenue values referenced in this report are in USD, with all conversions from local currencies calculated taking the average quarterly exchange rate for each quarter of the year. No constant currency values are used in this report
2. Independent revenue is measured on a distribution basis, not an ownership basis. Therefore, independent revenue that is distributed via a major record label or a wholly owned major label distributor will appear in the revenue of the respective major record label
3. For the first time, in this year’s report, MIDiA has included merchandise and expanded rights revenue of all major labels (UMG’s had not previously been included)