TikTok commissioned research firm Luminate to write a new report analyzing its impact on music. The report concludes that TikTok is an amazing good thing for music. However, as with this type of research, just because the research was commissioned for this purpose does not mean that the findings are not worthy of attention.
The findings of this study include: TikTok users are "significantly more likely" to use paid music streaming services than ordinary consumers, and they spend "significantly more" on music products (such as merchandise and tickets) than ordinary listeners.
While the report does not quantify this on a global scale, statistics for the United States are provided. In the United States, 62% of TikTok users pay for the streaming service, compared with 43% of consumers overall.
Meanwhile, 38% of TikTok's U.S. users attended a live music event last year, and 45% purchased artist merchandise, compared with 33% and 35% of overall music listeners.
Luminate's research also states that "TikTok users are more likely to discover new music on these platforms than regular users of social or short-form video (SFV) platforms."
In other words, there's more music discovery on TikTok than YouTubeShorts, InstagramReels, and other similar services. Likewise, how likely users are to discover new music globally is not quantified, but the report states that users are 70% more likely to discover new music in the US, 92% more likely in the UK and 96% more likely in Germany.
The report also stated that TikTok users "like music from different countries more than ordinary music listeners."
This is based on their responses to the question "Do they think 'access to music from global artists' is extremely important to their choice of streaming service?" 28% of U.S. TikTok users said "yes," compared with 21% of all listeners.
In the UK, the figures are 39% and 22% respectively. In Brazil, the proportions are 64% and 51% respectively. You can read the full report here.