United States recorded music revenue growth by 9.2% to $12.2 billion in 2020

With live music plummeting to almost none existent levels in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, your first thought would be that the music industry as a whole would have suffered, however that may not be the case. In a brand new report released by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), The United States recorded music revenues grew 9.2% in 2020 to an estimated retail value totalling $12.2 billion.

This report marks 2020 the fifth year of continual growth for the industry and has largely been due to the increasing use of streaming platforms. Income from streams on platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music accounted for almost 83% of all revenue, an increase of 3% according to last year’s report. On-demand music subscriptions grew by 14.6% to $7 billion in the US last year, with an average of 75.5 million people in the United States being subscribed to these services over the year.

Revenue from physical music sales however continues to slowly fall into decline, with total revenue being around the $1.1billion mark, a drop of 0.5% on the previous year. Interestingly, despite the challenges faced to retail, due to lockdowns and store closures, vinyl sales revenue jumped a large 28.7% by value year-over-year, and for the first time since the 1980s, vinyl sales have surpassed the sale of CD. CD sales have been seeing a large decline for many years now and 2020 is no different with revenue seeing a 23% drop to $483 million.

It’s always nice to see the music industry thriving in one way or another, especially with the lack of live shows recently due to the pandemic. For more information and figures, you can check the full year end report from the RIAA here. 

The music ? industry has transformed incredibly over a short period of time. Revenues from a wide array of streaming services – from Internet radio to social media, subscription services to fitness apps – contributed 83% of total revenues in 2020. ➡️ https://t.co/PxmHdrygBK pic.twitter.com/LLpnB55iAO

— RIAA (@RIAA) February 26, 2021

Image Credit: Rukes.com