2025 Music Industry Wrapped

A global, story-first recap of the year music stopped chasing growth, and started chasing control.

The global market:

still growing, but the era of easy growth is over

Global recorded music revenue rose again—10 straight years of growth, reaching $29.6B in 2024 (+4.8%), per IFPI’s Global Music Report 2025 (released in 2025, covering 2024).

Two signals mattered most:

• Paid subscriptions keep carrying the market: IFPI cites 752M paid subscription accounts globally (up 10.6%).

• Growth is uneven by region: Middle East & North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America led growth, while mature markets grew slower.

  
  

The punchline for 2025: streaming is not “done”—but the maturity curve is visible. Everyone is optimizing for efficiency and leverage, not just land-grab.

The US market:

subscriptions up, revenue growth… barely moving

The US stayed huge, but the story changed: subscriber accounts hit 105.3M in H1 2025, while overall recorded music revenue rose only modestly.

From the RIAA mid-year report:

• $5.6B total US recorded revenue (H1 2025)

• Streaming = 84% of the market

• Paid subscriptions = $3.2B (up 5.7%)

  
  

Interpretation: the funnel keeps widening (more subs), but topline growth is harder (pricing pressure, competition for attention, and consumer fatigue).

Streaming platforms in 2025:

“profitability era” becomes policy

Spotify: scale is still rising—and the company is acting like a utility

Spotify reported 281M subscribers and 713M MAUs in Q3 2025, alongside €582M operating income.

And Spotify leadership openly discussed price hikes and strategy around ubiquity (Spotify not “just a music service anymore”).

Also worth noting: Spotify publicly emphasized it paid $10B to the music industry in 2024 (their framing of value creation).

What this meant in 2025: Platforms are increasingly judged like mature public companies on margins, retention, ARPU, operating profit and not just growth charts. That shifts leverage conversations with labels, publishers, and creators.

Physical didn’t die

And India Joins the Analog Renaissance

IFPI reports vinyl revenue up 4.6% (18th consecutive year of vinyl growth) even while overall physical declined.

Globally, vinyl sustained its comeback with continued growth in major markets. In the U.S., for example, vinyl comprised more than three-quarters of total physical recorded music revenue in the first half of 2025, generating $457 million — a notable share in a landscape otherwise dominated by streaming.

Perhaps the most fascinating development in 2025 came from the global south: India’s first new vinyl pressing plant in over four decades opened, signaling the format’s reach beyond traditional Western strongholds. Samanvii Digimedia Art & Solutions a diversified media manufacturing and packaging technology company launched the facility in Navi Mumbai, reviving domestic LP production after it had virtually vanished. This new capacity aims to significantly reduce lead times and costs for Indian artists and labels releasing vinyl, while serving a growing collector community.

The domestic resurgence was matched by culturally significant collector releases, including limited-edition vinyl editions celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sholay , one of Bollywood’s most beloved soundtracks. These special LP box sets combined analog format with memorabilia, appealing directly to superfans and vinyl enthusiasts alike.

(See Amazon India listing for Sholay 50th anniversary vinyl)

Taken together, these developments reflect a broader truth: vinyl has matured into a global physical media movement. In 2025, that movement found new industrial life not only in established markets like North America but also in emerging ones such as India, a reminder that even in a streaming-dominated world, tangible music formats matter for fandom, collector culture, and revenue diversification.

Live music:

blockbuster economics, bigger scrutiny

Live kept printing money at the top end.

Live Nation posted record results in 2025, including $8.5B revenue in Q3 2025 (+11%) and a 60% increase in global stadium show count.

At the artist/tour level, the “billion-dollar tour” club grew: Live Nation said The Weeknd’s tour crossed $1B gross (AP), reflecting how global touring has become truly industrial scale.

But: bigger economics brought bigger heat—ticketing practices, market concentration, and public scrutiny stayed a major 2025 storyline.

What changed for artists:Live is still the largest “cultural moment engine,” but it’s increasingly tied to pricing power, routing, sponsorship, and operational sophistication is less romantic, more finance.

The majors:

growth, expansion, and the “services layer” land grab

Universal Music Group: expanding vertically and geographically

UMG’s 2025 financial updates showed continued growth in recorded music and publishing.

Two corporate storylines stood out:

1. India expansion via content adjacency: UMG agreed to acquire a 30% stake in Excel Entertainment (Bollywood studio), aiming for deeper soundtrack + label collaboration.

   
   

2. The “services + distribution” consolidation battle: UMG’s Virgin Music Group proposed $775M acquisition of Downtown Music, triggering EU competition scrutiny and an in-depth investigation.

This is not just a “deal.” It’s about owning the infrastructure layer that serves independent labels and creators at scale.

Warner Music Group: performance + “artist services” growth narrative

WMG reported strong growth in parts of 2025, including streaming and publishing lines in official results.

And MBW coverage highlighted rising “artist services / expanded rights” revenue as a major growth vector.

Big picture:The majors increasingly behave like hybrid companies: rights owners + services platforms + consumer-facing experience builders.

AI in 2025:

from lawsuits to licensing frameworks

2025 was the year AI moved from “panic” to “policy and deals.”

Key moments:

• UMG settled with Udio, striking a deal that points toward licensed AI models rather than uncontrolled scraping/training.

• Warner settled with Suno, enabling licensed model plans.

• Warner also signed a licensing agreement with Suno, with opt-in framing for artists/songwriters.

• UMG also announced a partnership with Nvidia around music AI capabilities.

  
  

What this meant in 2025:The industry’s stance shifted toward:

• “We will not allow unlicensed training,” and simultaneously

• “We will license and monetize AI if rights and attribution are protected.”

This is a strategic unlock: labels and publishers are attempting to turn AI from an existential threat into a new revenue lane—on their terms.

Short-form video & platform licensing

The TikTok/UMG conflict (which began in early 2024 and resolved with a new agreement) stayed influential because it proved a larger point: music’s value is leverage, and platforms that rely on music cannot treat it like background wallpaper. (UMG)

Academic and industry analysis continued to examine the demand impacts of removing major catalog from TikTok (and what happens when music disappears from a discovery engine).

Takeaway for 2025: Licensing is no longer “backend admin.” It’s a front-line strategic weapon.

Artist economy in 2025 music industry:

more professional, more polarized

This is the under-discussed reality:

• The “middle class” of artists is under pressure from attention fragmentation and rising marketing costs.

• At the same time, the best-run independent artists are operating more like rights-holding businesses than “creatives who upload.”

  
  

You can see the shift in where the industry invests: catalog, services, data, touring scale, brand partnerships.

Also, the per-stream debate didn’t go away. Apple still publicly stated an average per-play rate around $0.01 (historic reference point) while streaming payout variability remains a constant reality artists must understand.

Translation for artists:2025 rewarded creators who treat releases like assets: clean metadata, planned campaigns, predictable cadence, and diversified revenue.

Distribution in 2025:

speed was commoditized, strategy became the differentiator

By 2025, “fast distribution” is a feature, not a moat.

What actually mattered more:

• release planning windows (editorial, algorithmic readiness)

• metadata accuracy and rights hygiene

• cross-platform rollout (DSPs + short-form + live + community)

• post-release iteration (content sequencing, targeting, retargeting)

  
  

In a mature streaming world, velocity without a plan often becomes volatility.

The biggest corporate meta-trend:

the “music industry stack” is consolidating

If you zoom out, 2025 was about who owns each layer of the stack:

• Creation tools (AI, production, video)

• Rights (recordings, publishing, catalog)

• Distribution (DSP delivery + services)

• Discovery (short-form video, search, social, playlists)

• Monetization (streaming + direct-to-fan + live)

  
  

The Downtown deal scrutiny is a perfect example of regulators noticing that consolidation isn’t only about labels—it’s about the services layer that independents depend on.

What 2026 likely brings (measured predictions)

Based on 2025’s signals:

1. More licensing frameworks for AI (and more “opt-in” models) rather than endless lawsuits.

2. More consolidation pressure in the independent services ecosystem (plus more regulatory pushback).

3. Platforms keep pushing ARPU (pricing, bundles, tiering) as growth slows in mature markets.

4. Physical and live remain premium levers—especially for superfans and brand-building.

5. Artists who win will look less like “content creators” and more like repeatable, system-driven operators.

Closing thought

2025 didn’t shrink music, it matured it.

The headlines in 2025 were AI licensing, distribution consolidation, subscription scaling, tour economics—were all symptoms of the same thing: The music industry is optimizing for longevity. And that’s a good thing, especially for artists who treat their catalog like an asset, not a post.