Growth Opportunities in Global Audio Streaming Services

In 2021, the global audio streaming services market earned revenues of $31.35 billion, which is up 18.8% when compared to 2020. Growth in 2021 resulted mainly from the great popularity of audio streaming platforms and subscription models, broader availability of fast-speed connections with low latency (e.g., 5G), expansion of these services to new regions, and technological advancements that allow easy streaming from multiple devices. Going forward, the audio streaming services market will continue to grow at double-digit revenue rates during the entire forecast period (2022–2028). This study covers the global market for audio streaming services. These services allow users to stream audio from compatible devices, such as smartphones, smart TVs, and laptops. These services deliver audio via an internet connection on applications or web browsers. Although they provide instant access to a large collection of audio content and eliminate the need for memory space, many of these platforms allow customers to download files and listen to them offline. Audio streaming platforms provide different subscription plans. Most of them offer a free advertising-supported tier; paid subscriptions with multiple benefits; and student, family, and military discounts. Transactional online audio is excluded from this report (i.e., purchase of a specific piece of content). This study does not include video sharing and live streaming platforms, such as Youtube1 or Twitch, nor does it include satellite radio providers. This report forecasts the global market revenue for audio streaming services and the evolution of paid subscriptions. The installed base of paid licenses does not equate to the installed base of audio subscribers because a single user may have multiple licenses for different audio streaming services. Audio streaming providers offer different paid subscription tiers, which vary in price, audio quality, and offline downloading, and this study includes them in installed license revenue estimates. Audio streaming operators deliver advertisements to freemium listeners. In exchange for free access to a library of content, users listen to advertisements between tracks. Conversely, premium subscribers pay a monthly or annual fee to experience uninterrupted audio streaming. Revenue figures represent sales coming from subscription-based plans and advertisement revenue. Subscription revenues include direct sales from end users purchasing the service and indirect sales from business partners. The study excludes sales of merchandise, event tickets, sponsorships, and licensing revenues. This study uses primary and secondary information, in conjunction with internal information, to analyze the market and provide observations and conclusions.