Spotify updated its annual "Loud & Clear" report on Wednesday, highlighting that the geographical boundaries of the global music industry driven by streaming media are rapidly breaking down, and more and more creators from all over the world are earning considerable income and gaining transnational listeners on the platform.
The report shows that artists from 75 countries will earn at least US$500,000 in annual streaming revenue on Spotify in 2025, which is higher than the 66 countries in the previous year. At the same time, on average, about half of the streams for an artist on the platform come from markets outside of their home country. This is a direct reflection of the increasingly "borderless" nature of music in Spotify's view. Joe Hadley, Spotify’s head of global music partnerships and audiences, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that changes in the business landscape over the past 20 years have gradually allowed the music industry to get rid of a centralized structure. Now there are not only superstars, but also a large number of mid-level and emerging artists who can make a living from this. In the process, the globalization trend of music has accelerated simultaneously.
In terms of genre and language, Spotify pointed out that the songs that appeared on the platform's global list "Global Top 50" in the past year have covered 16 different languages, twice as many as in 2020. In terms of growth rate, Brazilian funk was the first to cross the US$100 million revenue threshold on Spotify last year and was the fastest-growing music genre, followed by K-Pop and other styles. Hadley cited the example of Spanish-language independent artist Bad Bunny appearing on the Super Bowl stage, K-Pop no longer being considered a niche, Afrobeat and Mexicana becoming globally popular music forms, and the rapid growth of Brazilian funk on Spotify, all confirming that the current music ecosystem is "unprecedentedly globalized," and such a situation was almost unimaginable 20 years ago.
Although the "Loud & Clear" report uses a large amount of data every year to show changes in listening behavior on the Spotify platform, its original intention was to respond to outsiders' doubts about the streaming business model and explain the platform's account sharing mechanism to creators. Low per-play revenue has been one of the most concentrated criticisms of Spotify from musicians over the years, so even if the latest data may not settle the debate, Spotify believes that the numbers at least show that more artists are finding a sustainable listener base. According to data disclosed this year, Spotify's total payment to the entire music industry will exceed US$11 billion in 2025, US$1 billion more than the previous year; the number of artists with annual income of at least US$100,000 increased by 1,400 year-on-year, reaching a total of 13,800. At the same time, about one-third of artists earning more than $10,000 per year are “DIY” or creators who started out as independent self-publishers.
However, the report also acknowledged the structural imbalance of the industry: there are still millions of songs on the platform that have not even been played once, let alone reached the minimum 1,000 plays to trigger any income settlement. This means that there are still only a few artists who can really "get ahead" in the system, but the scale of this "minority" is slowly expanding. Hadley emphasized that music has never been an easy career path, but Spotify and creators have "the same goals" in terms of revenue - nearly 70% of the platform's music revenue will be returned to the entire industry. When artists' income grows, the platform will also grow, and current data shows that the number of artists who receive "meaningful income" is continuing to rise.
In addition to recording copyrights, Spotify also revealed that last year was the highest amount paid to music publishers (mainly songwriting copyright owners) in the platform’s history. This statement is quite sensitive in the industry, because just in 2024, Spotify was accused by publishers of lowering songwriters' royalties in disguise for adjusting its subscription structure through a "bundled" sales strategy, which caused fierce controversy. Although the report did not disclose specific payment figures for 2025, it said that a total of approximately US$5 billion has been paid to publishers in the past two years.
Overall, the key signal that the latest "Loud & Clear" report attempts to convey is: on the one hand, music consumption has shown unprecedented global mobility on platforms such as Spotify, and non-English content and emerging genres are constantly breaking the original industry center; on the other hand, even if the overall distribution scale of the platform continues to expand, how to allow more long-tail creators to share the growth dividends and how to respond to questions about the streaming media payment model will still be issues that Spotify and the entire music industry must continue to face.