UK music streaming subscription revenues jumped 7.8% YoY in 2024 to $2.58bn – boosted by Spotify price rise

The amount of money spent on music subscriptions by UK consumers grew healthily last year, up 7.8% YoY.

That’s according to new preliminary stats from the UK’s Entertainment Retailers’ Association (ERA), whose members include Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

According to ERA’s data, some GBP £2.018 billion (USD $2.58bn) was spent on music streaming subscriptions in 2024, up from GBP £1.870 billion in 2023.

In monetary terms, that represented a YoY increase of GBP £146.4 million.

(To be extra-clear: ERA’s figures are retail amounts – i.e. what consumers spent on subscriptions, rather than the wholesale figure paid to music rightsholders. They don’t include revenue from ad-supported tiers.)

Naturally, the UK subscription market’s financial performance in 2024 was significantly boosted by the actions of one streaming service in particular: Spotify.

Spotify announced in April 2024 that it was increasing prices for multiple subscription tiers in the UK, the world’s third-largest recorded music market.

Spotify’s Premium Individual tier increased by GBP £1 per month in the UK to £11.99pm last year; its Duo and Family plans both increased by GBP £2 per month to £16.99pm and £19.99pm, respectively.

That was the second Spotify UK price rise in two years. The service previously upped its UK price point in July 2023, when it first moved beyond its long-held £9.99 per month charge.

As MBW has previously reported, data captured by the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) showed that in December 2021, Spotify’s market share of all music streaming’s monthly active users (‘free’ plus ‘premium’) in the UK stood at over 50%.

In addition to streaming revenues, ERA’s latest numbers also cover physical music sales and downloads. (ERA’s members include UK physical music retailers such as HMV, plus a network of independent retailers).

Annual UK physical music revenues (across CD and vinyl sales) were up 6.2% YoY in 2024 – totaling GBP £330.1 million (USD $421.9m).

Download sales were down 3.2% YoY, to GBP £41.3 million ($52.8m).

Total UK 2024 recorded music sales – including subscription streaming, physical music, and downloads – stood at GBP £2.390 billion (USD $3.05bn), up 7.4% YoY.

That GBP £2.390 billion figure, said ERA, was the UK recorded music industry’s highest annual revenue tally of all time, bigger than the market’s previous peak of GBP £2.222 billion in 2001.

However, this comparison doesn’t take into account inflation.

With inflation added into the mix, that GBP £2.222 billion from 2001 would have been worth GBP £4.081 billion at the close of 2024, according to Bank Of England data.

ERA CEO Kim Bayley said, “2024 was a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume. This is the stunning culmination of music’s comeback which has seen sales more than double since their low point in 2013. We can now say definitively – music is back.”

The combined UK music, video and games markets surveyed by ERA topped £12 billion for the first time in 2024, their 12th consecutive year of growth and eighth successive all-time-high.

2024’s £12.009 billion total in UK entertainment sales was more than 50% larger than the total in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.

ERA Chair Linda Walker said, “We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the entertainment business. Digital services and retailers have become the drivers of the market.

“For decades it was new release activity which most drove revenues. In 2024 subscription sales are now a far more significant factor.”

All GBP to USD conversions in this story have been made at the average annual exchange rate for 2024.

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