Reports: SoundCloud

Browse all of our reports, featuring our analysts' expert insights and analysis of audience segmentation, emerging trends and technologies, value chains, market shares, predictions and more – backed by our proprietary survey data and bespoke models & forecasts. Become a subscriber to get new ones every month, or just pick one to get started.

Cover image for Streaming strongholds

Streaming strongholds
High-potential markets for global music players

Perry Gresham

11 Aug 2025

ARPU Labels Streaming

While the balance of music streamers continues to tip towards global south markets, their smaller ARPU rates limit their revenues. Meanwhile, periodic price-rises and the advent of supremium will reinforce the contributions from the West. This report highlights streaming strongholds, those markets which, underscored by high music engagement and his...

Cover image for Music consumer behaviour Q1 2025

Music consumer behaviour Q1 2025
Mixed signals

Mark Mulligan

17 Jul 2025

Consumer behaviour Streaming France

This report presents MIDiA Research consumer data for music. Data covered includes weekly active users, streaming music behaviour, non-streaming behaviour, fandom activity, and audio consumption. All data is from MIDiA’s Q1 2025 survey, with data for US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Poland, Spain, Colombia, Japan, n = 9,023.

Cover image for International success for local language artists

International success for local language artists
A strategic playbook

Laura Fisher

24 Jun 2025

UK France Spotify

The music industry is undergoing a paradigm shift. Success once required artists to fit the traditional industry model where anglicisation and relocation to traditional hubs like Los Angeles, New York, or London were prerequisites. Streaming platforms have democratised access, enabling artists to achieve international fame while remaining culturall...

Cover image for AI futures

AI futures
Culture wars

Ben Woods, Tatiana Cirisano, Hanna Kahlert, Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

29 May 2025

Apple Spotify Deezer

AI is transforming culture, entertainment, business, and society at a rate unprecedented in the digital era. Unlike previous tech, AI is evolving at the speed of computing, not the human brain. Delivering as quickly as it promises, AI is breaking the mould.

Cover image for Germany media consumption Q4 2024

Germany media consumption Q4 2024
Growth potential on all fronts

Mark Mulligan

28 Apr 2025

US UK France

This report presents MIDiA consumer entertainment data across media, music, audio, and games. Data covered includes streaming music, podcasts, social media, games consoles, and much more. All data is from our Q4 2024 survey, fielded in US, Canada, Brazil,...

Music streaming consumer profile Q4 2024
Stabilisation and fandom slowdown

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

26 Feb 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. This report presents data-focused visuals and impactful analysis of trends and anomalies that will inform your understanding of what is happening to ...

Cover image for Global South rising

Global South rising
Streaming audiences in China, Turkey, and South Africa

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Nov 2024

Spotify YouTube Deezer

It is increasingly clear that the future of the global music streaming business relies heavily on the Global South markets, which include Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of World. Most subscription growth is coming from these regions, which will collectively dominate the global music subscriber base by 2031, according to MIDiA’s global ...

Cover image for Music merchandise demand

Music merchandise demand
Who, what, and where

Tatiana Cirisano

24 Oct 2024

Consumer behaviour cds Spotify

The music merchandise market has transformed, with significantly more artists selling merch and more product variety than ever before. The traditional line between “hard” and “soft” merch is blurring as new generations buy vinyl as a collectible keepsake, rather than a consumption format.

Cover image for The state and future of music fandom

The state and future of music fandom
Unleashing fan creativity

Tatiana Cirisano

21 Aug 2023

Spotify YouTube SoundCloud

Streaming is buckling under the weight of new music being released every day, listenership is fragmenting, and artificial intelligence is poised to intensify these challenges. The music industry’s next era of growth lies in monetising fandom, not consumption.

Cover image for Artists direct

Artists direct
Focus on passion, not professionalism

Tatiana Cirisano

2 May 2023

Spotify Spotify SoundCloud

All eyes of the music business are on artists direct, the fastest-growing segment of the industry. But the 6.4 million artists in this segment are far from a unified group, and have varied aspirations, challenges, and needs. MIDiA’s 2023 creator survey reflects that the two largest sub-segments of artists direct are those who seek full-time music...

Cover image for AI and the future of music

AI and the future of music
The future is already here

Mark Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert and Tatiana Cirisano

2 May 2023

Spotify SoundCloud Netflix

Unlike most new technology hype cycles, the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) has on the world is already surpassing expectations. Within the music industry, AI will largely be an enabler and accelerant of already-existing trends and market shifts: the growth of self-releasing artists, the consumerisation of music-making, and the resulting o...

Cover image for US millennial snapshot

US millennial snapshot
A looming generational blind spot

Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

3 Apr 2023

Spotify YouTube Deezer

In the US, 25-34-year-olds are the music industry’s most valuable segment. Yet their relationship with streaming is tenuous. Streaming is not meeting these consumers’ need for a more social, less algorithm-driven experience. What is more, they appear most likely to give their subscriptions up.

Cover image for Kill the campaign

Kill the campaign
Music marketing needs branding, not direct response

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

1 Feb 2023

Streaming Spotify Marketing

The debate over a new streaming royalties regime is capturing attention, but economics will not fix the underlying paradigm shifts that are the true cause for streaming’s problems: there is not enough money to go around for the ballooning amount of music on streaming services, and passive consumption is the new norm.

Cover image for Closing the background gap

Closing the background gap
Focused versus background audio listening

Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

30 Nov 2022

Spotify Radio YouTube

The rise of attention inflation means that consumers are maximising their limited time by multitasking between various formats, spurring a rise in background consumption. This creates a “new” space for platforms to compete for consumers’ time. Among entertainment formats, audio is best placed to conquer background listening, but music streami...

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DSP user profiles
Small is beautiful

Mark Mulligan

29 Nov 2022

Spotify YouTube Deezer

With streaming music now in its mature growth stage in most leading music markets, differentiation will be key to unlocking further growth pockets. While this will likely require innovation in both product and licensing, there are already clear signs that the streaming services are developing userbases with distinct and varied behaviours and charac...

Cover image for Streaming’s next growth phase

Streaming’s next growth phase
The necessity of differentiation

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Oct 2022

Apple Spotify YouTube

DSPs have long been able to grow their subscriber bases despite all offering essentially the same experience. Yet the freemium model is reaching a saturation point, putting slow but steady pressure on DSPs to find new ways to grow subscribers and revenue.

Cover image for After digital

After digital
The search for a cheaper cultural moment

Hanna Kahlert

28 Oct 2022

Spotify Pandora SoundCloud

Audiences are becoming ever-more creative and this proclivity will come into its own over the coming period of economic, social, and political turbulence. To reconnect with each other while conserving their financial resources, these audiences will increasingly employ their digital-savvy pandemic learnings in the way that they consume entertainment...

Cover image for State of the music creator economy

State of the music creator economy
Post-lockdown growth

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

30 Sep 2022

Apple Spotify live

The Covid pandemic created a unique catalyst for the music creator economy. More time on hands and more cash in pockets gave novices and veterans alike the opportunity to spend both more time and money making music. Though the pandemic was a peak, it also marked the start of a new era for the music creator economy across every one of its aspects, f...

Cover image for Re-creating the creator economy

Re-creating the creator economy

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Srishti Das, Kriss Thakrar, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano, Annie Langston and Richard Broadhurst

18 Aug 2022

Apple Spotify YouTube

Streaming first democratised the means of consumption, then distribution, and now production. Though the promise of the long tail may not have materialised quite as expected, long-tail and mid-tail creators are now a central component of the digital-entertainment economy.

Cover image for Music sync market forecast

Music sync market forecast
Production libraries raise the pitch

Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

27 Jul 2022

YouTube SoundCloud Netflix

Amid fragmenting fandom and the attention recession, sync is more important than ever as a tool for both revenue generation and marketing. There are also dozens of emerging use cases for sync, from creator content to fitness platforms and virtual spaces in the evolving metaverse.

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