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Goldman Sachs has revealed the most recent version of its influential Music within the Air report.
The 91-page analysis paper, launched right now (June 3), offers insights into streaming development, worth methods, rising markets, and the impression of synthetic intelligence on the music enterprise.
Regardless of revising some forecasts downward following a slower-than-expected 2024, Goldman Sachs maintains a optimistic long-term outlook for the music business.
The financial institution expects the worldwide music market (throughout recorded music, publishing, and stay) to just about double from USD $104.9 billion in 2024 to $196.8 billion by 2035.
In response to the report, authored by a crew of Goldman Sachs analysts led byLisa Yang, alongside Eric Sheridan and Stephen Laszczyk, amongst others, the business will profit from a number of key development drivers, together with rising market enlargement, subscription pricing enhancements, and new income streams from superfan monetization.
The report identifies important alternatives forward, noting that “the music market ought to stay resilient in an unsure macro backdrop”.
Listed here are seven key takeaways from Goldman Sachs’ evaluation…
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1. GLOBAL STREAMING SUBSCRIBERS EXPECTED TO REACH 827 MILLION IN 2025
Goldman Sachs forecasts that world paid music streaming subscribers will develop to 827 million in 2025, representing 10% YoY development from 752 million in 2024.
This is able to characterize an addition of roughly 75 million web new subscribers in 2025, although the expansion price of 10% represents a slight deceleration from 2024’s 10.6% development, and stays nicely under the 12.8% development seen in 2023.
“There have been 72 million new subscribers in 2024, in contrast with 77 million/94 million in 2023/22, representing the slowest tempo of web additions since 2017,” the report states.
Rising markets will proceed to drive nearly all of this development, the place “penetration stays at solely 8% of the web inhabitants” in comparison with 38% in developed markets.
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2. RECORDED MUSIC GROWTH SIGNIFICANTLY UNDERPERFORMED IN 2024, FORECASTS REVISED DOWNWARD. World revenues tipped to hit $31.4bn in 2025.
Recorded music development severely missed expectations in 2024, rising solely 4.8% YoY (as reported by IFPI) in comparison with Goldman Sachs’ forecast of 8.9% – a shortfall of over 4 proportion factors.
“2024 world recorded music development got here 4ppt under our expectations,” the report states, marking the primary yr since Goldman Sachs started forecasting music business tendencies the place recorded music fell nicely in need of projections.
“Goldman now expects 5.8% development in 2025 (down from 8.8% beforehand) and 6.6% in 2026 (down from 8.4%).”
Goldman Sachs has consequently lowered its recorded music development forecasts, now anticipating 5.8% development in 2025 (down from 8.8% beforehand) and 6.6% in 2026 (down from 8.4%).
Goldman tasks the recorded music market to develop from $29.6 billion in 2024 to $31.4 billion in 2025, $33.6 billion in 2026, $43.4 billion in 2030, and $55.0 billion in 2035 (see under).
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3. SUPERFAN MONETIZATION COULD GENERATE $4.3 BILLION IN ADDITIONAL REVENUE
Goldman Sachs identifies superfan monetization as a major alternative for the music business, estimating a possible annual income uplift of $4.3 billion based mostly on 2026 projections.
The evaluation assumes that 20% of paid streaming subscribers will be outlined as superfans and that these customers would spend twice as a lot as common subscribers, based mostly on Luminate‘s discovering that 20% of US music listeners are thought-about superfans.
“Goldman estimates a possible annual income uplift of $4.3 billion based mostly on 2026 projections.”
“In response to Luminate, tremendous followers within the US spend 66% extra on stay music than the common music listener, and 2x as a lot on bodily purchases,” the report notes.
Goldman factors to Tencent Music’s Tremendous VIP tier for example of a profitable superfan tier, which “prices c.2.5x as a lot because the premium subscription” and has seen sturdy adoption, with penetration reaching 12% of TME’s subscriber base in Q1 2025.
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4. MUSIC STREAMING PRICES WILL CONTINUE RISING WITH REGULAR INCREASES EXPECTED
Goldman Sachs expects music streaming companies to implement common pricing will increase, with second rounds of worth hikes sometimes occurring 12-18 months after preliminary will increase.
“Via 2023, all main streaming platforms have applied their first-ever complete worth will increase throughout commonplace and household plans. These appeared to have had little or no impression on subscriber development and churn charges,” the report states.
The funding financial institution believes music streaming stays attractively priced in comparison with different leisure companies, noting that “Spotify‘s and Apple Music‘s commonplace subscriptions are nonetheless 39% cheaper than Netflix within the US” and “within the US, the common spend per paid music streaming account is round $14 per 30 days.
This compares to a median spend per 30 days of $69 for SVOD customers, with the common shopper having 4 SVOD companies.”
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5. EMERGING MARKETS WILL DRIVE 75% OF SUBSCRIBER GROWTH BY 2035
Goldman forecasts that rising markets will turn into the dominant driver of music streaming development, accounting for 75% of web subscriber additions by 2035, up from 57% in 2024.
“Rising markets have turn into the most important driver of subscription development, accounting for over half of recent subscribers since 2021 (on our estimates), together with practically 60% in 2024, though penetration stays at solely 8% of the web inhabitants,” the report states.
Nonetheless, rising markets will proceed to contribute a smaller share of streaming income as a result of decrease common income per consumer (ARPU) annually.
Goldman calculates – based mostly on IFPI figures – that annual ’rising market’ ARPU sat at round USD$8 in 2024, in comparison with USD$31 in ‘developed’ markets.
(These numbers will likely be impacted by telco offers, multi-user subscription bundles and so forth.)
The evaluation highlights China as a key market, the place “Tencent Music’s paying ratio has elevated considerably since 2018” from 4.2% to 21.5% in 2024, and India with an estimated “20 million paid customers throughout all streaming companies out of a complete MAU of [circa] 200 million customers in 2023.”
6. AI’s IMPACT ON MUSIC UPLOADS and the business’s income pool APPEARS LIMITED SO FAR
Regardless of considerations about synthetic intelligence flooding streaming platforms with generated content material, Goldman Sachs’ report notes that “the full variety of tracks uploaded every day decreased YoY for the primary time in 2024 (citing Luminate knowledge) despite the rising availability of AI-powered music apps to generate songs.”
The financial institution’s evaluation suggests AI’s impression on the music business income pool stays minimal, with business checks suggesting “AI music accounts for 0.1% of the royalty pool.”
“Ongoing concerted efforts among the many massive music gamers are essential to additional evolve royalty cost constructions and shield music copyrights.”
Some platforms are seeing important AI content material, nonetheless. “Deezer disclosed in April 2025 that [over] 20,000 AI-generated tracks have been uploaded to its platform every day (representing 18% of all tracks), double the 10k disclosed in January 2025,” whereas “Sony Music disclosed that it has taken down [over] 75,000 AI deepfakes based mostly on its artists, closely skewed in the direction of its hottest artists.”
Goldman emphasizes that “ongoing concerted efforts among the many massive music gamers are essential to additional evolve royalty cost constructions and shield music copyrights.”
7.Goldman Sachs expects the worldwide worth of Dwell music to speed up
Goldman Sachs expects stay music to be a key development driver, forecasting 10.0% development in 2025 following 4.4% development in 2024.
The financial institution has raised its long-term outlook for the sector, now anticipating a 7.2% compound annual development price between 2024-2030, up from 6.7% beforehand.
Dwell music revenues are projected to develop from $34.6 billion in 2024 to $38.2 billion in 2025, $52.6 billion in 2030, and $67.1 billion in 2035.
“We see a sturdy demand and provide outlook for the stay music business, with upside from elevated integration of stay music ticketing with streaming companies”.
“The Dwell Music business ought to profit from an growing provide of numerous & standard artists touring over the subsequent decade” pushed by “stronger monetary incentives to tour as excursions make up a better proportion of artist earnings,” the report states.
Goldman Sachs highlights demographic tendencies as significantly supportive, noting that “the rise of Millennials & Gen Z followers” who “place the very best relative significance on stay experiences vs prior generations” will drive development as these cohorts see their “earnings, wealth and spending energy as a gaggle develop quickly over the subsequent a number of years.”
The financial institution additionally notes sturdy pricing energy, with “common ticket costs” rising 40% for stadiums and 37% for golf equipment between 2019-2024, whereas emphasizing that stay music has “confirmed to be extra recession resilient than different types of leisure.”
Goldman Sachs’ analysts stated that they “see a sturdy demand and provide outlook for the stay music business, with upside from elevated integration of stay music ticketing with streaming companies”.
Reservoir (Nasdaq: RSVR) is a publicly traded, world unbiased music firm with operations throughout music publishing, recorded music, and artist administration.
