Mark Mulligan

Mark Mulligan is a music analyst and the founder at MIDiA Research. He is a long-term tech analyst and a leading digital thinker with more than 20 years of experience, working with leading global music, entertainment, and tech companies. At MIDiA, Mark focuses on the streaming and creator economies, as well as music business trends and market metrics such as forecasts and market shares.

Music subscriber market shares 2024: Slowdown? What slowdown?

Mark Mulligan

27 Mar 2025

Business Strategy

Spotify

YouTube

Record label streaming revenue growth slowed to 6% in 2024 but there was no such slowdown in subscriber growth. In our just published ‘ Music subscriber market shares Q4 2024 ’ report, we reveal that...

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Music subscriber market shares Q4 2024
Full stream ahead

Mark Mulligan

March 2025

music subscriber market shares

Business Strategy

Streaming market metrics are bifurcating. Label streaming revenues were up in 2024, indicating a much anticipated slow down in revenue growth. Yet, at the same time, music subscriber growth was nearly...

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A model for a new music streaming industry

Mark Mulligan

18 Mar 2025

Business Strategy

Spotify

YouTube

The music industry is approaching a pivot point. On the one hand, things look positive: we have UMG’s Streaming 2.0 , artist centric licensing, the impending launch of supremium and expanded rights revenue...

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Recorded music market 2024: $36.2 billion, up 6.5%

Mark Mulligan

13 Mar 2025

Music

Recorded music

Business Strategy

MIDiA has just released its annual recorded music market shares report. Clients can access the full report and the accompanying massive (!) data set here . For the rest of you, here are some highlights...

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Recorded music market shares 2024
Widening gaps

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

March 2025

Music revenue

Streaming

Spotify

After a buoyant 2023, recorded music revenue growth slowed again in 2024, the fourth year of alternating growth rates. It was a year of varied fortunes across both formats and labels, but perhaps most...

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Music streaming consumer profile Q4 2024
Stabilisation and fandom slowdown

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

February 2025

Willingness to pay

Music consumers

Streaming

Consumer music behaviours are both stabilising and showing signs of coming change. Change that could be challenging for all music business stakeholders, especially with regards to fandom monetisation....

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Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Mark Mulligan

18 Feb 2025

Fandom

TikTok

Streaming

I recently wrote about the unflattening of music :how creativity, craft, and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side...

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Why Spotify only hit profitability now (but will do so again)

Mark Mulligan

13 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Spotify

Streaming

Spotify finally registered its first profitable year in 2024. It has hit net profit in individual quarters before – most recently in Q3 2023 – but this is the first year it was profitable throughout...

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AI is reshaping the music creator economy, and that change will reshape the music business

Mark Mulligan

3 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Music

Creator economy

MIDiA is pleased to announce the release of not one but two new music creator economy reports. These are our latest " State of the music creator economy "and " Music creator tools forecasts "reports. These...

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The unflattening of music

Mark Mulligan

30 Jan 2025

Cultural trends

Spotify

TikTok

[This post builds on two other recent MIDiA posts: Background music and What got you here ] At the half way point of the decade it is a good time to reflect on how the business of music is reshaping the...

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MIDiA Research 2025–2031 music creator tools forecasts
AI comes to town

Mark Mulligan

January 2025

subscribers

AI

Business Strategy

This music creator tools forecasts report acts as a companion piece to MIDiA’s report “State of music creator economy: AI’s growing reach ” . This report provides analysis, market sizing, and forecasts...

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State of the music creator economy
AI’s growing reach

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

January 2025

Innovation

Creators

revenue

Still recovering from post-pandemic aftershocks, the music creator economy now faces unprecedented disruption from generative AI. More people are creating than ever before (both as creators and consumers)...

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What got you here won’t get you there: how Spotify built a new business

Mark Mulligan

17 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Spotify

Streaming

Since its inception, Spotify has been, and continues to be, the streaming music market’s lightning rod. This is due to its continued ability to maintain leading market share and the fact it is the only...

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Anti-algorithm, anti-perfection - the rise of a music counter-culture

Mark Mulligan

20 Dec 2024

SoundCloud

Scenes

Music

Today’s music landscape is one defined by abundance and immediacy. In today’s chronically-online world, everything is over-ground, immediately. Scenes have to work really hard to be underground and...

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Q3 2024 music metrics
Maturation effect

Mark Mulligan

December 2024

Business Strategy

This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music consumer behaviours and company financials for Q3 2024.Consumer data covered includes, streaming app usage, music behaviour and streaming activities....

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MIDiA's 2025 predictions webinar slides
It's social's stage now

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Ben Woods, Rutger Rosenborg, Rhys Elliott and Olivia Jones

December 2024

Free Report

Spotify

YouTube

Twitch

MIDiA's expert analysts dive into our 2025 predictions for the music, social, video, audio, and games industries – and explain why we believe "it's social's stage now".

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MIDiA’s 2025 predictions
It’s social’s stage now

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Ben Woods, Rutger Rosenborg, Rhys Elliott and Olivia Jones

December 2024

Apple

Spotify

YouTube

The creator economy reshaped entertainment in the first half of the 2020s and social wasthe big winner, now positioned at the centre of the entertainment economy. In 2025 wewill see the second-order effects...

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It’s social’s stage now: MIDiA’s 2025 predictions webinar

Mark Mulligan

28 Nov 2024

predictions

2025 predictions

tech trends

One of my favourite parts of the MIDiA year is creating the MIDiA predictions report and webinar. It is always a true team effort, with our team of analysts spending weeks brainstorming ideas, proposing...

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Hold or twist? The music industry’s innovation dilemma

Mark Mulligan

20 Nov 2024

Innovation

Streaming

streaming growth

As Clayton Christensen identified in The Innovator’s Dilemma, there are two types of innovation: sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. Sustaining innovation is what companies do to enhance...

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State of the independent music economy
Fragmentation and consolidation

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

October 2024

Business Strategy

This report presents the results of MIDiA’s annual independent label and distributor survey, as well as the most comprehensive market sizing of the non-major label sector ever conducted. Built on revenue...

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