Soundcloud Reports from MIDiA Research

Music merchandise demand
Who, what, and where

Cover image for Music merchandise demand

Tatiana Cirisano

October 2024

cds

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...

The state and future of music fandom
Unleashing fan creativity

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Tatiana Cirisano

August 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...

Artists direct
Focus on passion, not professionalism

Tatiana Cirisano

May 2023

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,...

AI and the future of music
The future is already here

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Mark Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert and Tatiana Cirisano

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...

US millennial snapshot
A looming generational blind spot

Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

April 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...

Kill the campaign
Music marketing needs branding, not direct response

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

February 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...

Closing the background gap
Focused versus background audio listening

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Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

November 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...

DSP user profiles
Small is beautiful

Mark Mulligan

November 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...

Streaming’s next growth phase
The necessity of differentiation

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Tatiana Cirisano

October 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...

After digital
The search for a cheaper cultural moment

Hanna Kahlert

October 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...

State of the music creator economy
Post-lockdown growth

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Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

September 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...

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

August 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...

Music sync market forecast
Production libraries raise the pitch

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Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

July 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...

The future of music
The rise of a counterculture industry

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

June 2022

Consumer Behaviour

Spotify

Music creators

Music streaming and the attention recession have turned music into a background activity. Artists en masse are struggling to cut through the noise, realising that streaming is neither a place to build...

Music creators
Slicing the funnel

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

February 2022

YouTube

Soundcloud

tunecore

Streaming enabled the rise of the independent artist and then the rise of the music creator. The promise of the long tail finally appeared to be realised. But the pandemic’s disruption of live music...

Music market subscriber shares 2021
Growth is not letting up yet

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Mark Mulligan

December 2021

Subscriptions

Streaming

Music Subscriptions

This report presents key figures from MIDiA’s global music subscriber market shares model. The full dataset is published alongside this report, with quarterly data (from Q4 2015 to Q1 2021) and annual...

From social media to creator tools
The evolution of UGC

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Hanna Kahlert

September 2021

Apple

Spotify

YouTube

Entertainment is suffering intense competition as audience attention time, already saturated before the pandemic, is hit by the gradual return of ‘in real life’ activities. A flurry of new propositions...

Music creator tools forecast
Moving towards a hybrid future

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Mark Mulligan

September 2021

creators

Apple

Spotify

Once upon a time, music software and hardware were distinct market segments, but now they are increasingly fusing into a network of hybrid creator tools ecosystems. Standalone hardware still has a vibrant...

Spotify Q2 2021 earnings
Slowdown arrives

Cover image for Spotify Q2 2021 earnings

Mark Mulligan

August 2021

Streaming

Music Subscriptions

Spotify

The growth headwinds that appeared in Q1 2021 manifested in a pronounced user growth slowdown in Q2, with ad-supported users hit hardest. Spotify has been through lean growth periods before, but what is...

Addressable creator markets
An opportunity with many layers

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Mark Mulligan

July 2021

Apple

artists

The music creator tools space is undergoing a change that is simultaneously renaissance and transformation. The creator culture boom has driven an unprecedented degree of investment and investor interest....

Reports: Soundcloud